LI8KAJU 


LITTLE  MASTERPIECES 


Little    Masterpieces 

Edited  by  Bliss  Perry 
JOHN  MILTON 

Selections,  chiefly  Autobiographical,  from  the 
Pamphlets  and  Letters, 

•with 
The  Tractate  on  Education  and  Areopagitica 


NEW   YORK 
DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE   &   COMPANY 

1902 


Copyright,  1901,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE   &   COMPANY 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION,            .        .  vii 

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 

Milton's  Personal  History,         .        .  3 
His  Purity  of  Life,       .        .        .        .16 

His  Blindness,        .        .        .        .        .  29 

His  Dedication  to  Truth,           .        .  40 

TRUE  MARRIAGE, 59 

POLITICAL. 

The  English  Reformation,          .        .  69 

Sketch  of  Bradshaw,           ...  79 

Sketches  of  Cromwell  and  Fairfax,  84- 
Letters  of  State  Concerning  the 

Massacre  in  Piedmont,         .        .  88 

PERSONAL  LETTERS. 

To  Leonard  Philaras,         .        .        .  103 

To  Peter  Heimbach,    ....  107 

ON  EDUCATION, 109 

AREOPAGITICA, 133 


Editor's   Introduction 


Tii 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION. 

IN  one  of  the  most  memorable  passages  of 
Milton's  prose  writings,*  published  at  the 
very  beginning  of  his  activity  as  a  pam- 
phleteer, he  makes  a  significant  confession 
concerning  his  use  of  prose:  "I  should  not 
choose  this  manner  of  writing,  wherein 
knowing  myself  inferior  to  myself,  led  by  the 
genial  power  of  nature  to  another  task,  I 
have  the  use,  as  I  may  account,  but  of  my 
left  hand."  That  other  task  to  which  the 
genial  power  of  nature  led  him  was  the  pro- 
duction of  poetry,  and  a  young  man  who 
had  already  written  "L' Allegro"  and  "II 
Penseroso,"  "Lycidas"  and  "Comus,"  might 
be  pardoned  for  long  hesitancy  before  turn- 
ing to  an  alien  instrument  of  expression. 
"But  when  God  commands  to  take  the  trum- 
pet, and  blow  a  dolorous  or  a  jarring  blast, 
it  lies  not  in  man's  will  what  he  shall  say  or 
what  he  shall  conceal."  So  thought  this 
most  fastidious  of  English  poets,  when  he 
bade  farewell  to  the  quiet  ways  and  the 
serene  hours  devoted  to  the  muse,  and  boldly 
entered  the  arena  of  political  and  theological 
controversy.  Many  a  "jarring  blast"  he  was. 

*"The  Reason  of  Church  Government  Urged 
Against  Prelaty." 


Editor's   Introduction 

to  blow,  many  a  sore  fight  was  his  to  wage, 
before  the  long  conflict  closed  in  the  utter 
ruin  of  the  cause  he  held  most  dear,  and  he 
was  left  free  once  more,  in  obscurity  and 
blindness  and  sorrow,  to  fulfil  the  dream  of 
his  youth,  and  compose  a  poem  that  the 
world  would  not  willingly  let  die.  Twenty 
of  the  best  years  of  his  life  were  spent  as  a 
soldier  of  liberty,  with  the  prose  pamphlet 
as  his  weapon.  Yet  high  as  was  his  courage, 
and  extraordinary  as  were  some  of  the  feats 
which  he  performed,  one  cannot  help  feeling 
that,  to  use  Milton's  own  metaphor,  he  was 
fighting  all  the  time  with  his  left  hand.  A 
born  poet,  his  true  province  was  song  rather 
than  speech, — and  even  speech,  in  such  a 
conflict  as  he  entered,  turned  too  soon  into 
the  hoarse,  bitter,  confused  shoutings  of  the 
battle-field.  The  poet  of  "Lycidas"  was  out 
of  place  there,  and  yet  such  was  his  native, 
Samson-like  power,  that  with  either  hand 
and  with  any  \veapon  he  could  put  his 
enemies  to  disastrous  rout. 

The  prose  works  are  not  easy  reading,  as 
a  whole,  and  the  lapse  of  two  centuries  and 
a  half  in  time,  and  the  still  more  significant 
changes  of  thought  and  feeling  that  have 
taken  place  in  the  English-speaking  world 
since  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
make  it  difficult  for  the  contemporary  reader 
to  peruse  them  with  full  comprehension  and 
sympathy.  But  here  and  there  they  contain 


Editor's   Introduction 

passages  of  such  felicity  and  beauty,  such 
imperishable  grandeur,  as  to  challenge  com- 
parison with  anything  in  the  prose  literature 
of  the  world. 

In  making  this  volume  of  selections,  I  have 
given  the  first  place  to  four  autobiographical 
passages,  in  which  Milton  tells  his  personal 
history,  defends  his  purity  of  life  and  aim, 
comments  nobly  upon  his  blindness,  and 
dedicates  himself  to  the  cause  of  Truth. 
Next  comes  a  lofty  description  of  perfect 
marriage,  drawn  from  "The  Doctrine  and 
Discipline  of  Divorce."  For  their  political  as 
\vell  as  religious  interest  I  have  reprinted  the 
opening  and  closing  pages  of  "Reformation 
in  England,"  and  have  added  the  sketches  of 
Bradshaw  and  Cromwell.  The  Letters  of 
State  which  Milton  dictated  to  foreign 
powers  concerning  the  massacre  of  Protes- 
tants in  Piedmont  will  be  read  with  keen 
curiosity  by  all  admirers  of  the  sonnet, 
"Avenge,  O  Lord,  Thy  slaughtered  saints." 
Of  Milton's  personal  letters  I  have  chosen 
two,  one  relating  to  his  blindness,  the  other 
to  his  peaceful  old  age. 

I  have  given  in  full  the  two  best  known  of 
Milton's  prose  treatises,  the  tract  "On  Edu- 
cation," and  the  famous  "Areopagitica,"  or 
plea  for  free  speech.  Brief  preparatory  notes 
accompany  each  selection  in  the  volume. 

There  are  aspects  of  Milton's  controversial 
writings  which  such  a  book  as  this  does  not 


Editor's   Introduction 

adequately  represent.  He  was  often  matched 
against  ignoble  and  unscrupulous  antago- 
nists, and,  like  them,  availed  himself  of  mere 
vituperation  and  abuse.  His  personalities 
directed  against  Salmasius  and  More  would 
be  ridiculous  if  it  were  not  for  their  ferocity. 
By  nature  a  recluse,  many  of  his  passionate 
political  invectives  and  exhortations  quite 
missed  the  practical  point  that  then  occupied 
men's  minds,  and  thus  gave  some  of  his  most 
laborious  compositions  a  pathetic  and  fatal 
ineffectiveness.  But  Time  has  a  kindly  way, 
after  all,  of  dealing  with  such  great  spirits 
as  the  Puritan  poet.  We  forget  their  mortal 
blunders,  their  immediate  defeat:  what  we 
remember  is  their  "sunrise  aim,"  their  un- 
wearied hope  and  effort.  To  Milton,  more 
than  to  most  soldiers  of  freedom,  the  centu- 
ries have  been  generous.  They  have  been 
mindful  of  all  that  was  glorious  in  him,  and 
have  discovered  nothing  that  was  base. 

BLISS  PERRY. 


xii 


Autobiographical 


MILTON'S  PERSONAL  HISTORY 

[This  autobiographical  passage  is  taken  from 
''The  Second  Defence  of  the  People  of  England," 
which  was  published  in  May,  1654.  Three  years 
earlier,  Milton  had  published  "A  Defence  of  the 
People  of  England,"  written  in  reply  to  a  pam- 
phlet of  Salmasius  (Claude  de  Saumaise),  a  fa- 
mous Continental  scholar  who  had  been  engaged, 
after  the  execution  of  Charles  I.,  to  uphold  the 
royal  cause  against  the  Commonwealth.  Salma- 
sius was  discomfited  by  the  unexpected  passion 
and  power  of  this  "First  Defence,"  a  work  which 
cost  Milton  his  eyesight.  But  another  champion 
of  the  Stuarts,  named  Du  Moulin,  published,  with 
some  assistance  from  a  rather  disreputable  Scotch- 
man, Alexander  More  (whom  Milton  supposed  to 
be  the  sole  author),  an  anonymous  reply  to  the 
"First  Defence."  This  gave  Milton  an  oppor- 
tunity for  a  crushing  rejoinder  in  the  "Second 
Defense,"  which  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  of 
his  controversial  writings.  Both  Defences  were 
written  in  Latin.] 

• 

I  WAS  born  at  London,  of  an  honest 
family;  my  father  was  distinguished  by  the 
undeviating  integrity  of  his  life ;  my  mother, 
by  the  esteem  in  which  she  was  held,  and  the 
alms  which  she  bestowed.  My  father  des- 
tined me  from  a  child  to  the  pursuits  of 
literature;  and  my  appetite  for  knowledge 
was  so  voracious,  that,  from  twelve  years  of 
age,  I  hardly  ever  left  my  studies,  or  went  to 
bed  before  midnight.  This  primarily  led  to 
3 


Milton 

my  loss  of  sight.  My  eyes  were  naturally 
weak,  and  I  "was  subject  to  frequent  head- 
aches; which,  however,  could  not  chill  the 
ardor  of  my  curiosity,  or  retard  the  prog- 
ress of  my  improvement.  My  father  had 
me  daily  instructed  in  the  grammar-school, 
and  by  other  masters  at  home.  He  then, 
after  I  had  acquired  a  proficiency  in  various 
languages,  and  had  made  a  considerable 
progress  in  philosophy,  sent  me  to  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge.  Here  I  passed  seven 
years  in  the  usual  course  of  instruction  and 
study,  with  the  approbation  of  the  good, 
and  without  any  stain  upon  my  character, 
till  I  took  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts. 
After  this,  I  did  not,  as  this  miscreant  feigns, 
run  away  to  Italy,  but  of  my  own  accord 
retired  to  my  father's  house,  whither  I  was 
accompanied  by  the  regrets  of  most  of  the 
fellows  of  the  college,  who  showed  me  no 
common  marks  of  friendship  and  esteem.  On 
my  father's  estate,  where  he  had  determined 
to  pass  the  remainder  of  his  days,  I  enjoyed 
an  interval  of  uninterrupted  leisure,  -which  I 
entirely  devoted  to  the  perusal  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin  classics;  though  I  occasionally 
visited  the  metropolis,  either  for  the  sake  of 
purchasing  books,  or  of  learning  something 
new  in  mathematics  or  in  music,  in  which  I, 
at  that  time,  found  a  source  of  pleasure  and 
amusement.  In  this  manner  I  spent  five 
years  till  my  mother's  death.  I  then  became 
4 


Milton's   Personal  History 

anxious  to  visit  foreign  parts,  and  particu- 
larly Italy.  My  father  gave  me  his  permis- 
sion, and  I  left  home  with  one  servant.  On 
my  departure,  the  celebrated  Henry  Woot- 
ton,  who  had  long  been  King  James's  ambas- 
sador at  Venice,  gave  me  a  signal  proof  of 
his  regard,  in  an  elegant  letter  which  he 
wrote,  breathing  not  only  the  warmest 
friendship,  but  containing  some  maxims  of 
conduct  which  I  found  very  useful  in  my 
travels.  The  noble  Thomas  Scudamore,  King 
Charles's  ambassador,  to  whom  I  carried 
letters  of  recommendation,  received  me  most 
courteously  at  Paris.  His  lordship  gave  me 
a  card  of  introduction  to  the  learned  Hugo 
Grotius,  at  that  time  ambassador  from  the 
Queen  of  Sweden  to  the  French  court;  whose 
acquaintance  I  anxiously  desired,  and  to 
whose  house  I  was  accompanied  by  some  of 
his  lordship's  friends.  A  few  days  after, 
when  I  set  out  for  Italy,  he  gave  me  letters 
to  the  English  merchants  on  my  route,  that 
they  might  show  me  any  civilities  in  their 
power.  Taking  ship  at  Nice,  I  arrived  at 
Genoa,  and  afterwards  visited  Leghorn, 
Pisa,  and  Florence.  In  the  latter  city,  -which 
I  have  always  more  particularly  esteemed  for 
the  elegance  of  its  dialect,  its  genius,  and  its 
taste,  I  stopped  about  two  months;  when  I 
contracted  an  intimacy  with  many  persons 
of  rank  and  learning,  and  was  a  constant 
attendant  at  their  literary  parties;  a  prac- 


Milton 

tice  which  prevails  there,  and  tends  so  much 
to  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  the  pres- 
ervation of  friendship.  No  time  will  ever 
abolish  the  agreeable  recollections  which  I 
cherish  of  Jacob  Gaddi,  Carolo  Dati,  Fresco- 
baldo,  Cultellero,  Bonomatthai,  Clementillo, 
Francisco,  and  many  others.  From  Florence 
I  went  to  Siena,  thence  to  Rome,  where, 
after  I  had  spent  about  two  months  in  view- 
ing the  antiquities  of  that  renowned  city, 
where  I  experienced  the  most  friendly  atten- 
tions from  Lucas  Holstein,  and  other  learned 
and  ingenious  men,  I  continued  my  route  to 
Naples.  There  I  was  introduced  by  a  cer- 
tain recluse,  with  whom  I  had  travelled  from 
Rome,  to  John  Baptista  Manso,  marquis  of 
Villa,  a  nobleman  of  distinguished  rank  and 
authority,  to  whom  Torquato  Tasso,  the  il- 
lustrious poet,  inscribed  his  book  on  friend- 
ship. During  my  stay,  he  gave  me  singular 
proofs  of  his  regard  :  he  himself  conducted  me 
round  the  city,  and  to  the  palace  of  the 
viceroy;  and  more  than  once  paid  me  a  visit 
at  my  lodgings.  On  my  departure  he  gravely 
apologized  for  not  having  shown  me  more 
civility,  which  he  said  he  had  been  restrained 
from  doing,  because  I  had  spoken  with  so 
little  reserve  on  matters  of  religion.  When  I 
was  preparing  to  pass  over  into  Sicily  and 
Greece,  the  melancholy  intelligence  which  I 
received  of  the  civil  commotions  in  England 
made  me  alter  my  purpose ;  for  I  thought  it 
6 


Milton's  Personal  History 

base  to  be  travelling  for  amusement  abroad, 
while  my  fellow-citizens  \vere  fighting  for 
liberty  at  home.  While  I  was  on  my  way 
back  to  Rome,  some  merchants  informed  me 
that  the  English  Jesuits  had  formed  a  plot 
against  me  if  I  returned  to  Rome,  because  I 
had  spoken  too  freely  on  religion ;  for  it  was 
a  rule  which  I  laid  down  to  myself  in  those 
places,  never  to  be  the  first  to  begin  any 
conversation  on  religion;  but  if  any  ques- 
tions were  put  to  me  concerning  my  faith,  to 
declare  it  without  any  reserve  or  fear.  I, 
nevertheless,  returned  to  Rome.  I  took  no 
steps  to  conceal  either  my  person  or  my 
character;  and  for  about  the  space  of  two 
months  I  again  openly  defended,  as  I  had 
done  before,  the  reformed  religion  in  the  very 
metropolis  of  popery.  By  the  favor  of  God, 
I  got  safe  back  to  Florence,  where  I  was 
received  with  as  much  affection  as  if  I  had 
returned  to  my  native  country.  There  I 
stopped  as  many  months  as  I  had  done  be- 
fore, except  that  I  made  an  excursion  for  a 
few  days  to  Lucca;  and,  crossing  the  Apen- 
nines, passed  through  Bologna  and  Ferrara 
to  Venice.  After  I  had  spent  a  month  in 
surveying  the  curiosities  of  this  city,  and  had 
put  on  board  a  ship  the  books  which  I  had 
collected  in  Italy,  I  proceeded  through  Ve- 
rona and  Milan,  and  along  the  Leman  lake 
to  Geneva.  The  mention  of  this  city  brings 
to  my  recollection  the  slandering  More,  and 


Milton 

makes  me  again  call  the  Deity  to  witness, 
that  in  all  those  places  in  which  vice  meets 
•with  so  little  discouragement,  and  is  prac- 
tised with  so  little  shame,  I  never  once 
deviated  from  the  paths  of  integrity  and  vir- 
tue, and  perpetually  reflected  that,  though 
my  conduct  might  escape  the  notice  of  men, 
it  could  not  elude  the  inspection  of  God.  At 
Geneva  I  held  daily  conferences  with  John 
Deodati,  the  learned  professor  of  theology. 
Then  pursuing  my  former  route  through 
France,  I  returned  to  my  native  country, 
after  an  absence  of  one  year  and  about  three 
months;  at  the  time  when  Charles,  having 
broken  the  peace,  was  renewing  what  is 
called  the  episcopal  war  with  the  Scots,  in 
which  the  Royalists  being  routed  in  the  first 
encounter,  and  the  English  being  universally 
and  justly  disaffected,  the  necessity  of  his 
affairs  at  last  obliged  him  to  convene  a 
parliament.  As  soon  as  I  was  able,  I  hired 
a  spacious  house  in  the  city  for  mj^self  and 
my  books;  where  I  again  with  rapture 
renewed  my  literary  pursuits,  and  where  I 
calmly  awaited  the  issue  of  the  contest, 
which  I  trusted  to  the  wise  conduct  of  Provi- 
dence, and  to  the  courage  of  the  people. 
The  vigor  of  the  Parliament  had  begun  to 
humble  the  pride  of  the  bishops.  As  long  as 
the  liberty  of  speech  was  no  longer  subject 
to  control,  all  mouths  began  to  be  opened 
against  the  bishops ;  some  complained  of  the 


Milton's   Personal  History 

vices  of  the  individuals,  others  of  those  of  the 
order.  They  said  that  it  was  unjust  that 
they  alone  should  differ  from  the  model  of 
other  reformed  churches;  that  the  govern- 
ment of  the  church  should  be  according  to 
the  pattern  of  other  churches,  and  particu- 
larly the  word  of  God.  This  awakened  all 
my  attention  and  my  zeal.  I  saw  that  a 
way  was  opening  for  the  establishment  of 
real  liberty ;  that  the  foundation  was  laying 
for  the  deliverance  of  man  from  the  yoke  of 
slavery  and  superstition ;  that  the  principles 
of  religion,  which  were  the  first  objects  of 
our  care,  would  exert  a  salutary  influence 
on  the  manners  and  constitution  of  the  repub- 
lic; and  as  I  had  from  my  youth  studied 
the  distinctions  between  religious  and  civil 
rights,  I  perceived  that  if  I  ever  wished  to  be 
of  use,  I  ought  at  least  not  to  be  wanting 
to  my  country,  to  the  church,  and  to  so 
many  of  my  fellow-Christians,  in  a  crisis  of 
so  much  danger;  I  therefore  determined  to 
relinquish  the  other  pursuits  in  which  I  was 
engaged,  and  to  transfer  the  whole  force  of 
my  talents  and  my  industry  to  this  one  im- 
portant object.  I  accordingly  wrote  two 
books  to  a  friend  concerning  the  reformation 
of  the  Church  of  England.  Afterwards,  when 
two  bishops  of  superior  distinction  vindi- 
cated their  privileges  against  some  principal 
ministers,  I  thought  that  on  those  topics,  to 
the  consideration  of  which  I  was  led  solely 
9 


Milton 

by  my  love  of  truth,  and  my  reverence  for 
Christianity,  I  should  not  probably  write 
•worse  than  those  who  were  contending  only 
for  their  own  emoluments  and  usurpations. 
I  therefore  answered  the  one  in  two  books, 
of  which  the  first  is  inscribed,  "Concerning 
Prelatical  Episcopacy,"  and  the  other  "Con- 
cerning the  Mode  of  Ecclesiastical  Govern- 
ment;" and  I  replied  to  the  other  in  some 
Animadversions,  and  soon  after  in  an  Apol- 
ogy. On  this  occasion  it  was  supposed  that 
I  brought  a  timely  succor  to  the  ministers, 
•who  were  hardly  a  match  for  the  eloquence 
of  their  opponents ;  and  from  that  time  I  was 
actively  employed  in  refuting  any  answers 
that  appeared.  When  the  bishops  could  no 
longer  resist  the  multitude  of  their  assail- 
ants, I  had  leisure  to  turn  my  thoughts  to 
other  subjects;  to  the  promotion  of  real  and 
substantial  liberty ;  which  is  rather  to  be 
sought  from  within  than  from  without ;  and 
whose  existence  depends,  not  so  much  on  the 
terror  of  the  sword,  as  on  sobriety  of  con- 
duct and  integrity  of  life.  When,  therefore,  I 
perceived  that  there  were  three  species  of 
liberty  which  are  essential  to  the  happiness 
of  social  life — religious,  domestic,  and  civil; 
and  as  I  had  already  written  concerning  the 
first,  and  the  magistrates  were  strenuously 
active  in  obtaining  the  third,  I  determined  to 
turn  my  attention  to  the  second,  or  the 
domestic  species.  As  this  seemed  to  involve 
10 


Milton's  Personal   History 

three  material  questions,  the  conditions  of 
the  conjugal  tie,  the  education  of  the  children, 
and  the  free  publication  of  the  thoughts,  I 
made  them  objects  of  distinct  consideration. 
I  explained  my  sentiments,  not  only  concern- 
ing the  solemnization  of  the  marriage,  but 
the  dissolution,  if  circumstances  rendered  it 
necessary;  and  I  drew  my  arguments  from 
the  divine  law,  which  Christ  did  not  abolish, 
or  publish  another  more  grievous  than  that 
of  Moses.  I  stated  my  own  opinions,  and 
those  of  others,  concerning  the  exclusive  ex- 
ception of  fornication,  which  our  illustrious 
Selden  has  since,  in  his  "Hebrew  Wife,"  more 
copiously  discussed ;  for  he  in  vain  makes  a 
vaunt  of  liberty  in  the  senate  or  in  the 
forum,  who  languishes  under  the  vilest  servi- 
tude, to  an  inferior  at  home.  On  this  sub- 
ject, therefore,  I  published  some  books  which 
were  more  particularlv  necessary  at  that 
time,  when  man  and  wife  were  often  the 
most  inveterate  foes,  when  the  man  often 
staid  to  take  care  of  his  children  at  home, 
while  the  mother  of  the  family  was  seen 
in  the  camp  of  the  enemy,  threatening 
death  and  destruction  to  her  husband. 
I  then  discussed  the  principles  of  educa- 
tion in  a  summary  manner,  but  sufficiently 
copious  for  those  who  attend  seriously 
to  the  subject ;  than  which  nothing  can 
be  more  necessary  to  principle  the  minds  of 
men  in  virtue,  the  only  genuine  source  of 
11 


Milton 

political  and  individual  liberty,  the  onh-  true 
safeguard  of  states,  the  bulwark  of  their 
prosperity  and  renown.  Lastly,  I  wrote  my 
"Areopagitica,"  in  order  to  deliver  the  press 
from  the  restraints  with  which  it  was  en- 
cumbered ;  that  the  power  of  determining 
what  was  true  and  what  was  false,  what 
ought  to  be  published  and  what  to  be  sup- 
pressed, might  no  longer  be  entrusted  to  a 
few  illiterate  and  illiberal  individuals,  who 
refused  their  sanction  to  any  work  which 
contained  views  or  sentiments  at  all  above 
the  level  of  the  vulgar  superstition.  On  the 
last  species  of  civil  liberty,  I  said  nothing, 
because  I  saw  that  sufficient  attention  was 
paid  to  it  by  the  magistrates;  nor  did  I 
write  anything  on  the  prerogative  of  the 
crown,  till  the  king,  voted  an  enemy  by  the 
Parliament,  and  vanquished  in  the  field,  was 
summoned  before  the  tribunal  which  con- 
demned him  to  lose  his  head.  But  when,  at 
length,  some  Presbyterian  ministers,  who 
had  formerly  been  the  most  bitter  enemies 
to  Charles,  became  jealous  of  the  growth  of 
the  independents,  and  of  their  ascendancy  in 
the  parliament,  most  tumultuously  clamored 
against  the  sentence,  and  did  all  in  their 
power  to  prevent  the  execution,  though  they 
were  not  angry,  so  much  on  account  of  the 
act  itself,  as  because  it  was  not  the  act  of 
their  party;  and  when  they  dared  to  affirm, 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  Protestants,  and  of 
12 


Milton's  Personal  History 

all  the  reformed  churches,  \vas  abhorrent  to 
such  an  atrocious  proceeding  against  kings ; 
I  thought  that  it  became  me  to  oppose  such 
a  glaring  falsehood;  and  accordingly,  with- 
out any  immediate  or  personal  application 
to  Charles,  I  showed,  in  an  abstract  con- 
sideration of  the  question,  what  might  law- 
fully be  done  against  t3'rants;  and  in  sup- 
port of  what  I  advanced,  produced  the 
opinions  of  the  most  celebrated  divines ; 
while  I  vehemently  inveighed  against  the 
egregious  ignorance  or  effrontery  of  men, 
who  professed  better  things,  and  from  whom 
better  things  might  have  been  expected. 
That  book  did  not  make  its  appearance  till 
after  the  death  of  Charles ;  and  was  written 
rather  to  reconcile  the  minds  of  the  people 
to  the  event,  than  to  discuss  the  legitimacy 
of  that  particular  sentence  which  concerned 
the  magistrates,  and  which  was  already 
executed.  Such  were  the  fruits  of  my  private 
studies,  which  I  gratuitously  presented  to 
the  church  and  to  the  state;  and  for  which 
I  was  recompensed  by  nothing  but  impunity ; 
though  the  actions  themselves  procured  me 
peace  of  conscience,  and  the  approbation  of 
the  good ;  while  I  exercised  that  freedom  of 
discussion  which  I  loved.  Others,  without 
labor  or  desert,  got  possession  of  honors 
and  emoluments;  but  no  one  ever  knew  me 
either  soliciting  anything  myself  or  through 
the  medium  of  my  friends,  ever  beheld  me  in 
13 


Milton 

«.  supplicating  posture  at  the  doors  of  the 
-senate,  or  the  levees  of  the  great.  I  usually 
kept  myself  secluded  at  home,  where  my  own 
property,  part  of  which  had  been  withheld 
-during  the  civil  commotions,  and  part  of 
which  had  been  absorbed  in  the  oppressive 
contributions  which  I  had  to  sustain, 
afforded  me  a  scanty  subsistence.  When  I 
was  released  from  these  engagements,  and 
thought  that  I  was  about  to  enjoy  an  in- 
terval of  uninterrupted  ease,  I  turned  my 
thoughts  to  a  continued  history  of  my  coun- 
try, from  the  earliest  times  to  the  present 
period.  I  had  already  finished  four  books, 
-when,  after  the  subversion  of  the  monarchy, 
and  the  establishment  of  a  republic,  I  was 
surprised  by  an  invitation  from  the  council 
of  state,  who  desired  my  services  in  the  office 
for  foreign  affairs.  A  book  appeared  soon 
after,  which  was  ascribed  to  the  King,  and 
contained  the  most  invidious  charges  against 
the  Parliament.  I  was  ordered  to  answer  it ; 
and  opposed  the  Iconoclast  to  his  Icon.  I 
did  not  insult  over  fallen  majesty,  as  is  pre- 
tended; I  only  preferred  Queen  Truth  to  King 
Charles.  The  charge  of  insult,  which  I  saw 
that  the  malevolent  would  urge,  I  was  at 
some  pains  to  remove  in  the  beginning  of  the 
work;  and  as  often  as  possible  in  other 
places.  Salmasius  then  appeared,  to  whom 
they  were  not,  as  More  says,  long  in  looking 
-about  for  an  opponent,  but  immediately  ap- 
14 


Milton's  Personal   History 

pointed  me,  who  happened  at  the  time  to 
be  present  in  the  council.  I  have  thus,  sir, 
given  some  account  of  myself,  in  order  to 
stop  your  mouth,  and  to  remove  any  preju- 
dices which  your  falsehoods  and  misrepresen- 
tations might  cause  even  good  men  to  enter- 
tain against  me. 


15 


HIS  PURITY  OF  LIFE. 

[This  indignant  vindication  of  the  purity  of 
Milton's  life  at  Cambridge  University  and  during 
his  quiet  years  of  subsequent  study  is  taken  from 
"An  Apology  for  Smectymnuus, "  1642.  Five 
Presbyterian  ministers  had  written  a  joint  pam- 
phlet against  prelacy,  signed  Smectymnuus,  after 
the  initial  letters  of  their  names.  This  pamphlet 
had  been  bitterly  attacked,  and,  because  of  his 
defence  of  it,  Milton's  personal  character  had  been 
vilified.] 

I  MUST  be  thought,  if  this  libeller  (for  now 
he  shows  himself  to  be  so)  can  find  belief, 
after  an  inordinate  and  riotous  youth  spent 
at  the  university,  to  have  been  at  length 
"vomited  out  thence."  For  which  commo- 
dious lie,  that  he  may  be  encouraged  in  the 
trade  another  time,  I  thank  him ;  for  it  hath 
given  me  an  apt  occasion  to  acknowledge 
publicly  with  all  grateful  mind,  that  more 
than  ordinary  favor  and  respect,  which  I 
f-iund  above  any  of  my  equals  at  the  hands 
of  those  courteous  and  learned  men,  the  fel- 
lows of  that  college  wherein  I  spent  some 
years :  who  at  my  parting,  after  I  had  taken 
two  degrees,  as  the  manner  is,  signified 
many  ways  how  much  better  it  would  con- 
tent them  that  I  would  stay;  as  by  many 
letters  full  of  kindness  and  loving  respect, 
both  before  that  time,  and  long  after,  I  was 
16 


His  Purity  of  Life 

assured  of  their  singular  good  affection  to- 
wards me.  Which  being  likewise  prepense  to 
all  such  as  were  for  their  studious  and  civil 
life  worthy  of  esteem,  I  could  not  wrong 
their  judgments  and  upright  intentions,  so 
much  as  to  think  I  had  that  regard  from 
them  for  other  cause,  than  that  I  might  be 
still  encouraged  to  proceed  in  the  honest  and 
laudable  courses,  of  which  they  apprehended 
I  had  given  good  proof.  And  to  those  in- 
genuous and  friendly  men,  who  were  ever  the 
countenancers  of  virtuous  ard  hopeful  wits, 
I  wish  the  best  and  happiest  things,  that 
friends  in  absence  wish  one  to  another. 

As  for  the  common  approbation  or  dislike 
of  that  place,  as  now  it  is,  that  I  should 
esteem  or  disesteem  myself,  or  any  other  the 
more  for  that,  too  simple  and  too  credulous 
is  the  confuter,  if  he  think  to  obtain  with  me, 
or  any  right  discerner.  Of  small  practice 
were  that  ph\rsician,  who  could  not  judge  by 
what  both  she  or  her  sister  hath  of  long 
time  vomited,  that  the  worser  stuff  she 
strongly  keeps  in  her  stomach,  but  the  better 
she  is  ever  kecking  at,  and  is  queasy.  She 
vomits  now  out  of  sickness;  but  ere  it  will 
be  \vell  with  her,  she  must  vomit  by  strong 
physic.  In  the  meantime  that  suburb  sink, 
as  this  rude  scavenger  calls  it,  and  more 
than  scurrilously  taunts  it  with  the  plague, 
having  a  worse  plague  in  his  middle  entrail, 
that  suburb  wherein  I  dwell  shall  be  in  my 
2  17 


Milton 

account  a  more  honorable  place  than  his 
university.  Which  as  in  the  time  of  her  bet- 
ter health,  and  mine  own  younger  judgment, 
I  never  greatly  admired,  so  now  much  less. 
But  he  follows  me  to  the  city,  still  usurping 
and  forging  beyond  his  book  notice,  which 
only  he  affirms  to  have  had;  "and  where  my 
morning  haunts  are,  he  wisses  not."  It  is 
wonder  that,  being  so  rare  an  alchymist  of 
slander,  he  could  not  extract  that,  as  well 
as  the  university  vomit,  and  the  suburb  sink 
•which  his  art  could  distil  so  cunningly;  but 
because  his  lembec  fails  him,  to  give  him  and 
«nvy  the  more  vexation,  I  will  tell  him. 

Those  morning  haunts  are  where  they 
should  be,  at  home;  not  sleeping,  or  con- 
cocting the  surfeits  of  an  irregular  feast,  but 
up  and  stirring,  in  winter  often  ere  the  sound 
of  any  bell  awake  men  to  labor,  or  to  devo- 
tion; in  summer  as  oft  with  the  bird  that 
first  rouses,  or  not  much  tardier,  to  read 
good  authors,  or  cause  them  to  be  read,  till 
the  attention  be  weary,  or  memor}'  have  its 
full  fraught:  then,  with  useful  and  generous 
labors  preserving  the  body's  health  and 
hardiness  to  render  lightsome,  clear,  and  not 
lumpish  obedience  to  the  mind,  to  the  cause 
of  religion,  and  our  country's  liberty,  when 
it  shall  require  firm  hearts  in  sound  bodies  to 
stand  and  cover  their  stations,  rather  than 
to  see  the  ruin  of  our  protestation,  and  the 
anforcement  of  a  slavish  life. 
18 


His   Purity  of  Life 

These  are  the  morning  practices:  proceed1 
now  to  the  afternoon;  "in  playhouses,"  he 
says,  "and  the  bordelloes."  Your  intelli- 
gence, unfaithful  spy  of  Canaan?  He  gives 
in  his  evidence,  that  "there  he  hath  traced 
me."  Take  him  at  his  word,  readers;  but. 
let  him  bring  good  sureties  ere  ye  dismiss 
him,  that  while  he  pretended  to  dog  others, 
he  did  not  turn  in  for  his  own  pleasure:  for 
so  much  in  effect  he  concludes  against  him- 
self, not  contented  to  be  caught  in  every 
other  gin,  but  he  must  be  such  a  novice  as; 
to  be  still  hampered  in  his  own  hemp.  In  the 
Animadversions,  saith  he,  I  find  the  mention; 
of  old  cloaks,  false  beards,  night-walkers,, 
and  salt  lotion ;  therefore,  the  animadverter 
haunts  play-houses  and  bordelloes ;  for  if  he 
did  not,  how  could  he  speak  of  such  gear? 
Now  that  he  may  know  what  it  is  to  be  a, 
child,  and  yet  to  meddle  with  edged  tools,  I 
turn  his  antistrophon  upon  his  own  head; 
the  confuter  knows  that  these  things  are  the 
furniture  of  playhouses  and  bordelloes,  there- 
fore, by  the  same  reason,  "the  confuter  him- 
self hath  been  traced  in  those  places."  Was' 
it  such  a  dissolute  speech,  telling  of  some 
politicians  who  were  wont  to  eavesdrop  in> 
disguises,  to  say  they  were  often  liable  to  a. 
night  walking  cudgeller,  or  the  emptying  of  a 
urinal?  What  if  I  had  written  as  your  friend 
the  author  of  the  aforesaid  mime,  "Mundus 
alter  et  idem,"  to  have  been  ravished  like 
19 


Milton 

some  young  Cephalus  or  Hylas,  by  a  troop 
of  camping  housewives  in  Viraginea,  and 
that  he  was  there  forced  to  swear  himself  an 
uxorious  varlet;  then  after  a  long  servitude 
to  have  come  into  Aphrodisia  that  pleasant 
country,  that  gave  such  a  sweet  smell  to  his 
nostrils  among  the  shameless  courtezans  of 
Desvergonia?  Surely  he  would  have  then 
concluded  me  as  constant  at  the  bordello,  as 
the  galley-slave  at  his  oar. 

But  since  there  is  such  necessity  to  the 
hearsay  of  a  tire,  a  periwig,  or  a  vizard, 
that  plays  must  have  been  seen,  what  diffi- 
culty was  there  in  that?  when  in  the  colleges 
so  many  of  the  young  divines,  and  those  in 
next  aptitude  to  divinity,  have  been  seen  so 
often  upon  the  stage,  writhing  and  unboning 
their  clergy  limbs  to  all  the  antic  and  dis- 
honest gestures  of  Trinculoes,  buffoons,  and 
bawds ;  prostituting  the  shame  of  that  min- 
istry, which  either  they  had,  or  were  nigh 
having,  to  the  eyes  of  courtiers  and  court 
ladies,  with  their  grooms  and  mademoi- 
selles. There,  while  they  acted  and  overacted, 
among  other  young  scholars,  I  was  a  spec- 
tator ;  they  thought  themselves  gallant  men, 
and  I  thought  them  fools ;  they  made  sport, 
and  I  laughed;  they  mispronounced,  and  I 
misliked;  and,  to  makeup  the  atticism,  thev 
\vere  out,  and  I  hissed.  Judge  now  whether 
so  many  good  textmen  were  not  sufficient  to 
instruct  me  of  false  beards  and  vizards,  with- 
20 


His   Purity  of  Life 

out  more  expositors;  and  how  can  this 
confuter  take  the  face  to  object  to  me  the 
seeing  of  that  which  his  reverend  prelates 
allow,  and  incite  their  young  disciples  to 
act?  For  if  it  be  unlawful  to  sit  and  be- 
hold a  mercenary  comedian  personating 
that  which  is  least  unseemly  for  a  hireling 
to  do,  how  much  more  blameful  is  it  to 
endure  the  sight  of  as  vile  things  acted 
by  persons  either  entered,  or  presently  to 
enter  into  the  ministry;  and  how  much 
more  foul  and  ignominious  for  them  to  be 
the  actors! 

But  because  as  well  by  this  upbraiding  to 
me  the  bordelloes,  as  by  other  suspicious 
glancings  in  his  book,  he  \vould  seem  privily 
to  point  me  out  to  his  readers,  as  one  whose 
custom  of  life  were  not  honest,  but  licentious, 
I  shall  entreat  to  be  borne  with,  though  I 
digress;  and  in  a  way  not  often  trod,  ac- 
quaint ye  with  the  sum  of  my  thoughts  in 
this  matter,  through  the  course  of  my  years 
and  studies :  although  I  am  not  ignorant 
how  hazardous  it  will  be  to  do  this  under  the 
nose  of  the  envious,  as  it  were  in  skirmish 
to  change  the  compact  order,  and  in- 
stead of  outward  actions,  to  bring  inmost 
thoughts  into  front.  And  I  must  tell  ye, 
readers,  that  by  this  sort  of  men  I  have  been 
already  bitten  at ;  yet  shall  they  not  for  me 
know  how  slightly  they  are  esteemed,  unless 
they  have  so  much  learning  as  to  read  what 
21 


Milton 

in  Greek  aitetpoxaXia*  is,  which,  together 
with  envy,  is  the  common  disease  of  those 
who  censure  books  that  are  not  for  their 
reading.  With  me  it  fares  now,  as  with  him 
whose  outward  garment  hath  been  injured 
and  ill-bedighted ;  for  having  no  other  shift, 
what  help  but  to  turn  the  inside  outwards, 
especially  if  the  lining  be  of  the  same,  or,  as 
it  is  sometimes,  much  better?  So  if  my  name 
and  outward  demeanor  be  not  evident 
enough  to  defend  me,  I  must  make  trial  if  the 
discovery  of  my  inmost  thoughts  can  :  where- 
in of  two  purposes,  both  honest  and  both 
sincere,  the  one  perhaps  I  shall  not  miss; 
although  I  fail  to  gain  belief  with  others,  of 
being  such  as  my  perpetual  thoughts  shall 
here  disclose  me,  I  may  yet  not  fail  of  suc- 
cess in  persuading  some  to  be  such  really 
themselves,  as  they  cannot  believe  me  to  be 
more  than  what  I  feign. 

I  had  my  time,  readers,  as  others  have, 
who  have  good  learning  bestowed  upon 
them,  to  be  sent  to  those  places  where,  the 
opinion  was,  it  might  be  soonest  attained ; 
and  as  the  manner  is,  was  not  unstudied  in 
those  authors  which  are  most  condemned. 
Whereof  some  were  grave  orators  and  his- 
torians, whose  matter  methought  I  loved 
indeed,  but  as  my  age  then  was,  so  I  under- 

*'  AneipOKaTiia,  is  the  conduct  of  one  who  is 
wanting  in  the  knowledge  of  what  is  polite  and 
becoming. — J.  A.  ST.  JOHN. 

22 


His  Purity  of  Life 

stood  them ;  others  were  the  smooth  elegiac 
poets,  whereof  the  schools  are  not  scarce, 
whom  both  for  the  pleasing  sound  of  their 
numerous  writing,  which  in  imitation  I 
found  most  easy,  and  most  agreeable  to 
nature's  part  in  me,  and  for  their  matter, 
which  what  it  is,  there  be  few  who  know 
not,  I  was  so  allured  to  read,  that  no  recre- 
ation came  to  me  better  welcome.  For  that 
it  was  then  those  years  with  me  which  are 
excused,  though  they  be  least  severe,  I  may 
be  saved  the  labor  to  remember  ye.  Whence 
having  observed  them  to  account  it  the  chief 
glory  of  their  wit,  in  that  they  were  ablest 
to  judge,  to  praise,  and  by  that  could  esteem 
themselves  worthiest  to  love  those  high  per- 
fections, which  under  one  or  other  name 
they  took  to  celebrate;  I  thought  with  my- 
self by  every  instinct  and  presage  of  nature, 
which  is  not  wont  to  be  false,  that  what 
emboldened  them  to  this  task,  might  with 
such  diligence  as  they  used  embolden  me; 
and  that  what  judgment,  wit,  or  elegance 
was  my  share,  would  herein  best  appear, 
and  best  value  itself,  by  how  much  more 
wisely,  and  with  more  love  of  virtue  I  should 
choose  (let  rude  ears  be  absent)  the  object  of 
not  unlike  praises.  For  albeit  these  thoughts 
to  some  will  seem  virtuous  and  commend- 
able, to  others  only  pardonable,  to  a  third 
sort  perhaps  idle ;  yet  the  mentioning  of  them 
now  will  end  in  serious. 
23 


Milton 

Nor  blame  it,  readers,  in  those  years  to 
propose  to  themselves  such  a  reward,  as  the 
noblest  dispositions  above  other  things  in 
this  life  have  sometimes  preferred :  whereof 
not  to  be  sensible  when  good  and  fair  in  one 
person  meet,  argues  both  a  gross  and  shal- 
low judgment,  and  withal  an  ungentle  and 
swainish  breast.  For  by  the  firm  settling  of 
these  persuasions,  I  became,  to  my  best  mem- 
ory, so  much  a  proficient,  that  if  I  found 
those  authors  anywhere  speaking  unworthy 
things  of  themselves,  or  unchaste  of  those 
names  which  before  they  had  extolled;  this 
effect  it  wrought  with  me,  from  that  time 
forward  their  art  I  still  applauded,  but  the 
men  I  deplored ;  and  above  them  all,  preferred 
the  two  famous  renowners  of  Beatrice  and 
Laura,  who  never  write  but  honor  of  them 
to  whom  they  devote  their  verse,  displaying 
sublime  and  pure  thoughts,  without  trans- 
gression. And  long  it  was  not  after,  when  I 
•was  confirmed  in  this  opinion,  that  he  who 
would  not  be  frustrate  of  his  hope  to  write 
•well  hereafter  in  laudable  things,  ought  him- 
self to  be  a  true  poem;  that  is,  a  composi- 
tion and  pattern  of  the  best  and  honor- 
ablest  things;  not  presuming  to  sing  high 
praises  of  heroic  men,  or  famous  cities,  unless 
he  have  in  himself  the  experience  and  the 
practice  of  all  that  which  is  praiseworth}-. 
These  reasonings,  together  with  a  certain 
niceness  of  nature,  an  honest  haughtiness, 
24 


His   Purity  of  Life 

and  self-esteem  either  of  what  I  was,  or  what 
I  might  be,  (which  let  envy  call  pride,)  and 
lastly  that  modest}-,  whereof,  though  not  in 
the  title-page,  yet  here  I  may  be  excused  to 
make  some  beseeming  profession ;  all  these 
uniting  the  supply  of  their  natural  aid  to- 
gether, kept '  me  still  above  those  low  de- 
scents of  mind,  beneath  which  he  must  deject 
and  plunge  himself,  that  can  agree  to  sale- 
able and  unlawful  prostitutions. 

Next,  (for  hear  me  out  now,  readers),  that 
I  may  tell  }^e  whither  my  younger  feet  wan- 
dered ;  I  betook  me  among  those  lofty  fables 
and  romances,  which  recount  in  solemn 
cantos  the  deeds  of  knighthood  founded  by 
our  victorious  kings,  and  from  hence  had  in 
renown  over  all  Christendom.  There  I  read 
it  in  the  oath  of  every  knight,  that  he  should 
defend  to  the  expense  of  his  best  blood,  or  of 
his  life,  if  it  so  befell  him,  the  honor  and 
chastity  of  virgin  or  matron;  from  whence 
even  then  I  learned  what  a  noble  virtue 
chastity  sure  must  be,  to  the  defence  of  which 
so  many  worthies,  by  such  a  dear  adventure 
of  themselves,  had  sworn.  And  if  I  found  in 
the  storv  afterward,  any  of  them,  by  word 
or  deed,  breaking  that  oath,  I  judged  it  the 
same  fault  of  the  poet,  as  that  which  is 
attributed  to  Homer,  to  have  written  inde- 
cent things  of  the  gods.  Only  this  my  mind 
gave  me,  that  every  free  and  gentle  spirit, 
without  that  oath,  ought  to  be  born  a 
25 


Milton 

knight,  nor  needed  to  expect  the  gilt  spur,  or 
the  laying  of  a  sword  upon  his  shoulder  to 
stir  him  up  both  by  his  counsel  and  his  arms, 
to  secure  and  protect  the  weakness  of  any 
attempted  chastity.  So  that  even  these 
books,  which  to  many  others  have  been  the 
fuel  of  wantonness  and  loose  living,  I  can- 
not think  how,  unless  by  divine  indulgence, 
proved  to  me  so  many  incitements,  as  you 
have  heard,  to  the  love  and  steadfast  obser- 
vation of  that  virtue  which  abhors  the  so- 
ciety of  bordelloes. 

Thus,  from  the  laureate  fraternity  of  poets, 
riper  years  and  the  ceaseless  round  of  study 
and  reading  led  me  to  the  shady  spaces  of 
philosophy;  but  chiefly  to  the  divine  volumes 
of  Plato,  and  his  equal  Xenophon:  where,  if 
I  should  tell  ye  what  I  learnt  of  chastity  and 
love,  I  mean  that  which  is  truly  so,  whose 
charming  cup  is  only  virtue,  which  she  bears 
in  her  hand  to  those  who  are  worthy;  (the 
rest  are  cheated  with  a  thick  intoxicating 
potion,  which  a  certain  sorceress,  the  abuser 
of  love's  name,  carries  about;)  and  how  the 
first  and  chiefest  office  of  love  begins  and 
ends  in  the  soul,  producing  those  happy 
twins  of  her  divine  generation,  knowledge 
and  virtue.  With  such  abstracted  sublimities 
as  these,  it  might  be  worth  your  listening, 
readers,  as  I  may  one  day  hope  to  have  ye 
in  a  still  time,  when  there  shall  be  no  chid- 
ing; not  in  these  noises,  the  adversary,  as 
26 


His   Purity  of  Life 

ye  know,  barking  at  the  door,  or  searching 
for  me  at  the  bordelloes,  where  it  may  be  he 
has  lost  himself,  and  raps  up  without  pity 
the  sage  and  rheumatic  old  prelates,  with  all 
her  young  Corinthian  laity,  to  inquire  for 
such  a  one. 

Last  of  all,  not  in  time,  but  as  perfection 
is  last,  that  care  was  ever  had  of  me,  with 
my  earliest  capacity,  not  to  be  negligently 
trained  in  the  precepts  of  the  Christian 
religion :  this  that .  I  have  hitherto  related, 
hath  been  to  show,  that  though  Christianity 
had  been  but  slightly  taught  me,  yet  a 
certain  reservedness  of  natural  disposition, 
and  moral  discipline,  learnt  out  of  the 
noblest  philosophy,  was  enough  to  keep  me 
in  disdain  of  far  less  incontinences  than  this 
of  the  bordello.  But  having  had  the  doctrine 
of  holy  scripture  unfolding  those  chaste  and 
high  mysteries,  with  timeliest  care  infused, 
that  "the  body  is  for  the  Lord,  and  the  Lord 
for  the  body;"  thus  also  I  argued  to  myself, 
that  if  unchastity  in  a  woman,  whom  St. 
Paul  terms  the  glory  of  man,  be  such  a 
scandal  and  dishonor,  then  certainly  in  a 
man,  who  is  both  the  image  and  glory  of 
God,  it  must,  though  commonly  not  so 
thought,  be  much  more  deflouring  and  dis- 
honorable; in  that  he  sins  both  against  his 
own  body,  which  is  the  perfecter  sex,  and  his 
own  glory,  which  is  in  the  woman;  and, 
that  which  is  worst,  against  the  image  and 
27 


Milton 

glory  of  God,  which  is  in  himself.  Nor  did 
I  slumber  over  that  place  expressing  such 
high  rewards  of  ever  accompanying  the 
Lamb  with  those  celestial  songs  to  others 
inapprehensible,  but  not  to  those  who  were 
not  denied  with  -women,  which  doubtless 
means  fornication ;  for  marriage  must  not  be 
called  a  defilement. 

Thus  large  I  have  purposely  been,  that  if  I 
have  been  justly  taxed  with  this  crime,  it 
may  come  upon  me,  after  all  this  my  con- 
fession, with  a  tenfold  shame:  but  if  I  have 
hitherto  deserved  no  such  opprobrious  word, 
or  suspicion,  I  may  hereby  engage  myself 
now  openly  to  the  faithful  observation  of 
what  I  have  professed. 


HIS  BLINDNESS. 

[From  "The   Second    Defence    of  the   People    of 
England."] 

LET  us  now  come  to  the  charges  which 
\vere  brought  against  myself.  Is  there  any- 
thing reprehensible  in  my  manners  or  my 
conduct?  Surely  nothing.  What  no  one,  not 
totally  divested  of  all  generous  sensibility, 
would  have  done,  he  reproaches  me  with 
•want  of  beauty  and  loss  of  sight. 

"A  monster  huge  and  hideous,  void  of  sight." 

I  certainly  never  supposed  that  I  should  have 
been  obliged  to  enter  into  a  competition  for 
beauty  with  the  Cyclops ;  but  he  immediately 
corrects  himself,  and  says,  "though  not  in- 
deed huge,  for  there  cannot  be  a  more  spare, 
shrivelled,  and  bloodless  form."  It  is  of  no 
moment  to  say  anything  of  personal  appear- 
ance, yet  lest  (as  the  Spanish  vulgar,  im- 
plicitly confiding  in  the  relations  of  their 
priests,  believe  of  heretics)  any  one,  from  the 
representations  of  my  enemies,  should  be  led 
to  imagine  that  I  have  either  the  head  of  a 
dog,  or  the  horn  of  a  rhinoceros,  I  will  say 
something  en  the  subject,  that  I  may  have 
29 


Milton 

an  opportunity  of  paying  my  grateful  ac- 
knowledgments to  the  Deity,  and  of  refuting 
the  most  shameless  lies.  I  do  not  believe 
that  I  was  ever  once  noted  for  deformity,  by 
any  one  who  ever  saw  me ;  but  the  praise  of 
beauty  I  am  not  anxious  to  obtain.  My 
stature  certainly  is  not  tall ;  but  it  rather 
approaches  the  middle  than  the  diminutive. 
Yet  what  if  it  were  diminutive,  when  so 
many  men,  illustrious  both  in  peace  and 
war,  have  been  the  same?  And  how  can 
that  be  called  diminutive,  which  is  great 
enough  for  every  virtuous  achievement? 
Nor,  though  very  thin,  was  I  ever  deficient 
in  courage  or  in  strength;  and  I  was  wont 
constantly  to  exercise  myself  in  the  use  of  the 
broadsword,  as  long  as  it  comported  with 
my  habit  and  my  years.  Armed  with  this 
weapon,  as  I  usually  was,  I  should  have 
thought  myself  quite  a  match  for  any  one, 
though  much  stronger  than  myself;  and  I 
felt  perfectly  secure  against  the  assault  of 
any  open  enemy.  At  this  moment  I  have  the 
same  courage,  the  same  strength,  though  not 
the  same  eyes;  yet  so  little  do  they  betray 
any  external  appearance  of  injury,  that  they 
are  as  unclouded  and  bright  as  the  eyes  of 
those  who  most  distinctly  see.  In  this  in- 
stance alone  I  am  a  dissembler  against  my 
will.  My  face,  which  is  said  to  indicate  a  total 
privation  of  blood,  is  of  a  complexion  entirely 
•opposite  to  the  pale  and  the  cadaverous ;  so 
30 


His  Blindness 

that,  though  I  am  more  than  forty  years 
old,  there  is  scarcely  any  one  to  whom  I  do 
not  appear  ten  years  younger  than  I  am ; 
and  the  smoothness  of  my  skin  is  not,  in  the 
least,  affected  by  the  wrinkles  of  age.  If 
there  be  one  particle  of  falsehood  in  this  rela- 
tion, I  should  deservedly  incur  the  ridicule 
of  many  thousands  of  my  countrymen,  and 
even  many  foreigners  to  whom  I  am  per- 
sonally known.  But  if  he,  in  a  matter  so 
foreign  to  his  purpose,  shall  be  found  to  have 
asserted  so  many  shameless  and  gratuitous 
falsehoods,  you  may  the  more  readily  esti- 
mate the  quantity  of  his  veracity  on  other 
topics.  Thus  much  necessity  compelled  me 
to  assert  concerning  my  personal  appear-, 
ance.  Respecting  yours,  though  I  have  been 
informed  that  it  is  most  insignificant  and 
contemptible,  a  perfect  mirror  of  the  worth- 
lessness  of  your  character  and  the  malevo- 
lence of  your  heart,  I  say  nothing,  and  no 
one  will  be  anxious  that  anything  should  be 
said.  I  wish  that  I  could  with  equal  facility 
refute  what  this  barbarous  opponent  has 
said  of  my  blindness ;  but  I  cannot  do  it ; 
and  I  must  submit  to  the  affliction.  It  is 
not  so  wretched  to  be  blind,  as  it  is  not  to 
be  capable  of  enduring  blindness.  But  why 
should  I  not  endure  a  misfortune,  which  it 
behoves  every  one  to  be  prepared  to  endure 
if  it  should  happen;  which  may,  in  the  com- 
mon course  of  things,  happen  to  any  man; 
31 


Milton 

and  which  has  been  known  to  happen  to  the 
most  distinguished  and  virtuous  persons  in 
history.  Shall  I  mention  those  wise  and 
ancient  bards,  \vhose  misfortunes  the  gods 
are  said  to  have  compensated  by  superior 
endowments,  and  whom  men  so  much  re- 
vered, that  they  chose  rather  to  impute  their 
want  of  sight  to  the  injustice  of  heaven  than 
to  their  own  want  of  innocence  or  virtue? 
What  is  reported  of  the  Augur  Tiresias  is 
well  known ;  of  whom  Apollonius  sung  thus 
in  his  Argonauts: 

"To  men  he  dar'd  the  will  divine  disclose, 
Nor  feared  what  Jove  might  in  his  wrath  impose. 
The  gods  assigned  him  age,  without  decay, 
But  snatched  the  blessing  of  his  sight  away." 

But  God  himself  is  truth;  in  propagating 
•which,  as  men  display  a  greater  integrity 
and  zeal,  they  approach  nearer  to  the  simili- 
tude of  God,  and  possess  a  greater  portion 
of  his  love.  We  cannot  suppose  the  deity 
envious  of  truth,  or  unwilling  that  it  should 
be  freely  communicated  to  mankind.  The 
loss  of  sight,  therefore,  which  this  inspired 
sage,  who  was  so  eager  in  promoting  knowl- 
edge among  men,  sustained,  cannot  be  con- 
sidered as  a  judicial  punishment.  Or  shall  I 
mention  those  worthies  who  were  as  dis- 
tinguished for  wisdom  in  the  cabinet,  as  for 
valor  in  the  field?  And  first  Timoleon  of 
Corinth,  who  delivered  his  city  and  all  Sicily 
32 


His  Blindness 

from  the  yoke  of  slavery ;  than  whom  there 
never  lived  in  any  age,  a  more  virtuous  man, 
or  a  more  incorrupt  statesman:  next  Ap- 
pius  Claudius,  whose  discreet  counsels  in  the 
senate,  though  they  could  not  restore  sight 
to  his  own  eyes,  saved  Italy  from  the  for- 
midable inroads  of  Pyrrhus :  then  Ca?cilius 
Metellus  the  high-priest,  who  lost  his  sight, 
while  he  saved,  not  only  the  city,  but  the 
palladium,  the  protection  of  the  city,  and  the 
most  sacred  relics,  from  the  destruction  of  the 
flames.  On  other  occasions  Providence  has 
indeed  given  conspicuous  proofs  of  its  regard 
for  such  singular  exertions  of  patriotism 
and  virtue;  what,  therefore,  happened  to  so 
great  and  so  good  a  man,  I  can  hardly  place 
in  the  catalogue  of  misfortunes.  Why  should 
I  mention  others  of  later  times,  as  Dandolo 
of  Venice,  the  incomparable  Doge;  or  Boemar 
Zisca,  the  bravest  of  generals,  and  the  cham- 
pion of  the  cross ;  or  Jerome  /ianchius,  and 
some  other  theologians  of  the  highest  repu- 
tation? For  it  is  evident  that  the  patriarch 
Isaac,  than  whom  no  man  ever  enjoyed  more 
of  the  divine  regard,  lived  blind  for  many 
years;  and  perhaps  also  his  son  Jacob,  who 
was  equally  an  object  of  the  divine  benevo- 
lence. And  in  short,  did  not  our  Saviour 
himself  clearly  declare  that  that  poor  man 
whom  he  restored  to  sight  had  not  been 
born  blind,  either  on  account  of  his  own  sins 
or  those  of  his  progenitors?  And  with  re- 
3  33 


Milton 

spect  to  myself,  though  I  have  accurately 
examined  my  conduct,  and  scrutinized  my 
soul,  I  call  thee,  0  God,  the  searcher  of 
hearts,  to  witness,  that  I  am  not  conscious, 
either  in  the  more  early  or  in  the  later  pe- 
riods of  my  life,  of  having  committed  any 
enormity,  which  might  deservedly  have 
marked  me  out  as  a  fit  object  for  such  a 
calamitous  visitation.  But  since  my  enemies 
boast  that  this  affliction  is  only  a  retribu- 
tion for  the  transgressions  of  my  pen,  I 
again  invoke  the  Almighty  to  witness,  that 
I  never,  at  any  time,  wrote  anything  which  I 
did  not  think  agreeable  to  truth,  to  justice, 
and  to  piety.  This  was  my  persuasion  then, 
and  I  feel  the  same  persuasion  now.  Nor" 
•was  I  ever  prompted  to  such  exertions  by  the 
influence  of  ambition,  by  the  lust  of  lucre  or 
of  praise;  it  was  only  by  the  conviction  of 
duty  and  the  feeling  of  patriotism,  a  disin- 
terested passion  for  the  extension  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty.  Thus,  therefore,  "when  I 
was  publicly  solicited  to  write  a  reply  to  the 
Defence  of  the  royal  cause,  when  I  had  to 
contend  with  the  pressure  of  sickness,  and 
with  the  apprehension  of  soon  losing  the 
sight  of  my  remaining  eye,  and  when  my 
medical  attendants  clearly  announced,  that 
if  I  did  engage  in  the  work,  it  would  be 
irreparably  lost,  their  premonitions  caused 
no  hesitation  and  inspired  no  dismay.  I 
would  not  have  listened  to  the  voice  even  of 
34 


His   Blindness 

Esculapius  himself  from  the  shrine  of  Epi- 
dauris,  in  preference  to  the  suggestions  of 
the  heavenly  monitor  within  my  breast ;  my 
resolution  was  unshaken,  though  the  alter- 
native was  either  the  loss  of  my  sight,  or  the 
desertion  of  my  duty :  and  I  called  to  mind 
those  two  destinies,  which  the  oracle  of 
Delphi  announced  to  the  son  of  Thetis : — 

"Two  fates  may  lead  me  to  the  realms  of  night: 
If  staying  here,  around  Troy's  wall  I  fight, 
To  my  dear  home  no  more  must  I  return; 
But  lasting  glory  will  adorn  my  urn. 
But,  if  I  withdraw  from  the  martial  strife, 
Short  is  my  fame,  but  long  will  be  my  life." 

11.  ix. 

I  considered  that  many  had  purchased  a  less 
good  by  a  greater  evil,  the  meed  of  glory  by 
the  loss  of  life;  but  that  I  might  procure 
great  good  by  little  suffering;  that  though  I 
am  blind,  I  might  still  discharge  the  most 
honorable  duties,  the  performance  of  which, 
as  it  is  something  more  durable  than  glory, 
ought  to  be  an  object  of  superior  admira- 
tion and  esteem;  I  resolved,  therefore,  to 
make  the  short  interval  of  sight,  which  was 
left  me  to  enjoy,  as  beneficial  as  possible  to 
the  public  interest.  Thus  it  is  clear  by  what 
motives  I  was  governed  in  the  measures 
which  ,  I  took,  and  the  losses  which  I  sus- 
tained. Let  then  the  calumniators  of  the 
divine  goodness  cease  to  revile,  or  to  make 
me  the  object  of  their  superstitious  imagina- 
35 


Milton 

tions.  Let  them  consider,  that  my  situation, 
such  as  it  is,  is  neither  an  object  of  my 
shame  or  my  regret,  that  my  resolutions  are 
too  firm  to  be  shaken,  that  I  am  not  de- 
pressed by  any  sense  of  the  divine  displeas- 
ure; that,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  most 
momentous  periods,  I  have  had  full  experi- 
ence of  the  divine  favor  and  protection  ;  and 
that,  in  the  solace  and  the  strength  which 
have  been  infused  into  me  from  above,  I  have 
been  enabled  to  do  the  will  of  God ;  that  I 
may  oftener  think  on  what  he  has  bestowed, 
than  on  what  he  has  withheld;  that,  in 
short,  I  am  unwilling  to  exchange  my  con- 
sciousness of  rectitude  with  that  of  any  other 
person;  and  that  I  feel  the  recollection  a 
treasured  store  of  tranquillity  and  delight. 
But,  if  the  choice  were  necessary,  I  would, 
sir,  prefer  my  blindness  to  yours ;  yours  is  a 
cloud  spread  over  the  mind,  which  darkens 
both  the  light  of  reason  and  of  conscience ; 
mine  keeps  from  my  view  only  the  colored 
surfaces  of  things,  while  it  leaves  me  at 
liberty  to  contemplate  the  beaut}'  and  sta- 
bility of  virtue  and  of  truth.  How  many 
things  are  there  besides  which  I  would  not 
willingly  see;  how  many  which  I  must  see 
against  my  will ;  and  how  few  which  I  feel 
any  anxiety  to  see !  There  is,  as  the  apostle 
}ias  remarked,  a  way  to  strength  through 
weakness.  Let  me  then  be  the  most  feeble 
creature  alive,  as  long  as  that  feebleness 
36 


His   Blindness 

serves  to  invigorate  the  energies  of  my  ra- 
tional and  immortal  spirit ;  as  long  as  in 
that  obscurity,  in  which  I  am  enveloped,  the 
light  of  the  divine  presence  more  clearly 
shines,  then,  in  proportion  as  I  am  weak,  I 
shall  be  invincibly  strong ;  and  in  proportion 
as  I  am  blind,  I  shall  more  clearly  see.  O ! 
that  I  may  thus  be  perfected  by  feebleness, 
and  irradiated  by  obscurity !  And,  indeed, 
in  my  blindness,  I  enjoy  in  no  inconsiderable 
degree  the  favor  of  the  Deity,  who  regards 
me  with  more  tenderness  and  compassion  in 
proportion  as  I  am  able  to  behold  nothing 
but  himself.  Alas !  for  him  who  insults  me, 
who  maligns  and  merits  public  execration! 
For  the  divine  law  not  only  shields  me  from 
injury,  but  almost  renders  me  too  sacred  to 
attack ;  not  indeed  so  much  from  the  priva- 
tion of  my  sight,  as  from  the  overshadowing 
of  those  heavenly  wings  which  seem  to  have 
occasioned  this  obscurity;  and  which,  when 
occasioned,  he  is  wont  to  illuminate  with  an 
interior  light,  more  precious  and  more  pure. 
To  this  I  ascribe  the  more  tender  assiduities 
of  my  friends,  their  soothing  attentions,  their 
kind  visits,  their  reverential  observances; 
among  whom  there  are  some  with  whom  I 
may  interchange  the  Pyladean  and  Thesean 
dialogue  of  inseparable  friends : — 

"Orest.    Proceed,  and  be  rudder  of  my  feet,  by 
shewing  me  the  most  endearing  love." 

Etirip-  in  Orest. 
37 


Milton 
And  in  another  place, 

"Lend  vour  hand  to  your  devoted  friend, 
Throw    your    arm  round  my  neck,   and  I  will 
conduct  you  on  the  way." 

This  extraordinary  kindness,  which  I  experi- 
ence, cannot  be  any  fortuitous  combination ; 
and  friends,  such  as  mine,  do  not  suppose 
that  all  the  virtues  of  a  man  are  contained 
in  his  eyes.  Nor  do  the  persons  of  principal 
distinction  in  the  commonwealth  suffer  me  to 
be  bereaved  of  comfort,  when  they  see  me 
bereaved  of  sight,  amid  the  exertions  which  I 
made,  the  zeal  which  I  showed,  and  the 
dangers  which  I  run  for  the  liberty  which  I 
love.  But,  soberly  reflecting  on  the  casual- 
ties of  human  life,  they  show  me  favor  and 
indulgence,  as  to  a  soldier  who  has  served 
his  time,  and  kindly  concede  to  me  an  exemp- 
tion from  care  and  toil.  They  do  not  strip 
me  of  the  badges  of  honor  which  I  have 
once  worn;  they  do  not  deprive  me  of  the 
places  of  public  trust  to  which  I  have  been 
appointed ;  they  do  not  abridge  my  salary  or 
emoluments ;  which,  though  I  may  not  do  so 
much  to  deserve  as  I  did  formerly,  they  are 
too  considerate  and  too  kind  to  take  away ; 
and,  in  short,  they  honor  me  as  much  as 
the  Athenians  did  those  whom  they  deter- 
mined to  support  at  the  public  expense  in  the 
Prytaneum.  Thus,  while  both  God  and  man 
unite  in  solacing  me  under  the  weight  of  my 
38 


His   Blindness 

affliction,  let  no  one  lament  my  loss  of  sight 
in  so  honorable  a  cause.  And  let  me  not 
indulge  in  unavailing  grief,  or  want  the 
courage  either  to  despise  the  revilers  of  my 
blindness,  or  the  forbearance  easily  to  pardon 
the  ofience. 


39 


HIS  DEDICATION  TO  TRUTH. 

[This  noble  passage,  which  contains  the  famous 
words  in  which  Milton  expresses  his  purpose  of 
writing  an  epic  poem,  forms  the  preface  to  the 
Second  Book  of  "The  Reason  of  Church  Govern- 
ment urged  against  Prelaty,"  1641.] 

How  happy  were  it  for  this  frail,  and  as  it 
may  be  called  mortal  life  of  man,  since  all 
earthly  things  which  have  the  name  of  good 
and  convenient  in  our  daily  use,  are  withal 
so  cumbersome  and  full  of  trouble,  if  knowl- 
edge, yet  which  is  the  best  and  lightsomest 
possession  of  the  mind,  were,  as  the  common 
saying  is,  no  burden ;  and  that  what  is 
wanted  of  being  a  load  to  any  part  of  the 
body,  it  did  not  with  a  heavy  advantage 
overlay  upon  the  spirit !  For  not  to  speak 
of  that  knowledge  that  rests  in  the  contem- 
plation of  natural  causes  and  dimensions, 
which  must  needs  be  a  lower  wisdom,  as  the 
object  is  low,  certain  it  is,  that  he  who  hath 
obtained  in  more  than  the  scantiest  measure 
to  know  anything  distinctly  of  God,  and  of 
his  true  worship,  and  what  is  infallibly  good 
and  happy  in  the  state  of  man's  life,  what 
in  itself  evil  and  miserable,  though  vulgarly 
not  so  esteemed;  he  that  hath  obtained  to 
know  this,  the  only  high  valuable  wisdom 
40 


His   Dedication  to  Truth 

indeed,  remembering  also  that  God,  even  to 
a  strictness,  requires  the  improvement  of 
these  his  entrusted  gifts,  cannot  but  sustain 
a  sorer  burden  of  mind,  and  more  pressing, 
than  any  supportable  toil  or  weight  which 
the  body  can  labor  under,  how  and  in  what 
manner  he  shall  dispose  and  employ  those 
sums  of  knowledge  and  illumination,  which 
God  hath  sent  him  into  this  world  to  trade 
with.  And  that  which  aggravates  the  bur- 
den more,  is,  that,  having  received  amongst 
his  allotted  parcels  certain  precious  truths, 
of  such  an  orient  lustre  as  no  diamond  can 
equal,  which  nevertheless  he  has  in  charge  to 
put  off  at  any  cheap  rate,  yea,  for  nothing 
to  them  that  will;  the  great  merchants  of 
this  world,  fearing  that  this  course  would 
soon  discover  and  disgrace  the  false  glitter 
of  their  deceitful  wares,  \vherewith  they 
abuse  the  people,  like  poor  Indians  with 
beads  and  glasses,  practise  by  all  means  how 
they  may  suppress  the  vending  of  such  rari- 
ties, and  at  such  a  cheapness  as  would  undo 
them,  and  turn  their  trash  upon  their  hands. 
Therefore  by  gratifying  the  corrupt  desires  of 
men  in  fleshly  doctrines,  they  stir  them  up  to 
persecute  with  hatred  and  contempt  all  those 
that  seek  to  bear  themselves  uprightly  in 
this  their  spiritual  factory :  which  they  fore- 
seeing, though  they  cannot  but  testify  of 
truth,  and  the  excellency  of  that  heavenly 
traffic  which  they  bring,  against  what  oppo- 
41 


Milton 

sition  or  danger  soever,  yet  needs  must  it  sit 
heavily  upon  their  spirits,  that  being,  in 
God's  prime  intention  and  their  own,  selected 
heralds  of  peace,  and  dispensers  of  treasure 
inestimable,  without  price,  to  them  that 
have  no  peace,  they  find  in  the  discharge  of 
their  commission,  that  they  are  made  the 
greatest  variance  and  offence,  a  very  sword 
and  fire  both  in  house  and  city  over  the 
whole  earth.  This  is  that  which  the  sad 
prophet  Jeremiah  laments:  "Woe  is  me,  my 
mother,  that  thou  hast  borne  me,  a  man  of 
strife  and  contention!"  And  although  divine 
inspiration  must  certainly  have  been  sweet 
to  those  ancient  prophets,  yet  the  irksome- 
ness  of  that  truth  \vhich  they  brought  was 
so  unpleasant  unto  them,  that  everywhere 
they  call  it  a  burden.  Yea,  that  mysterious 
book  of  revelation,  which  the  great  evangel- 
ist was  bid  to  eat,  as  it  had  been  some  eye- 
brightening  electuary  of  knowledge  and  fore- 
sight, though  it  were  sweet  in  his  mouth, 
and  in  the  learning,  it  was  bitter  in  his  belly, 
bitter  in  the  denouncing.  Nor  was  this  hid 
from  the  \vise  poet  Sophocles,  who  in  that 
place  of  his  tragedy  where  Tiresias  is  called 
to  resolve  King,  CEdipus  in  a  matter  which 
he  knew  would  be  grievous,  brings  him  in 
bemoaning  his  lot,  that  he  knew  more  than 
other  men.  For  surely  to  every  good  and 
peaceable  man,  it  must  in  nature  needs  be  a 
hateful  thing  to  be  the  displeaser  and  mo- 
42 


His  Dedication  to  Truth 

lester  of  thousands;  much  better  would  it 
like  him  doubtless  to  be  the  messenger  of 
gladness  and  contentment,  which  is  his  chief 
intended  business  to  all  mankind,  but  that 
they  resist  and  oppose  their  own  true  happi- 
ness. But  when  God  commands  to  take  the 
trumpet,  and  blow  a  dolorous  or  a  jarring 
blast,  it  lies  not  in  man's  will  what  he  shall 
say,  or  what  he  shall  conceal.  If  he  shall 
think  to  be  silent  as  Jeremiah  did,  because 
of  the  reproach  and  derision  he  met  with 
daily,  "And  all  his  familiar  friends  watched 
for  his  halting,"  to  be  revenged  on  him  for 
speaking  the  truth,  he  would  be  forced  to 
confess  as  he  confessed:  "His  word  •was  in 
my  heart  as  a  burning  fire  shut  up  in  my 
bones;  I  was  weary  with  forbearing,  and 
could  not  stay."  Which  might  teach  these 
times  not  suddenly  to  condemn  all  things  that 
are  sharply  spoken  or  vehemently  written  as 
proceeding  out  of  stomach,  virulence,  and  ill- 
nature  ;  but  to  consider  rather,  that  if  the 
prelates  have  leave  to  say  the  worst  that 
can  be  said,  or  do  the  worst  that  can  be 
done,  while  they  strive  to  keep  to  themselves, 
to  their  great  pleasure  and  commodity, 
those  things  which  they  ought  to  render  up, 
no  man  can  be  justly  offended  with  him  that 
shall  endeavor  to  impart  and  bestow,  with- 
out any  gain  to  himself,  those  sharp  but 
saving  words  which  would  be  a  terror  and 
a  torment  in  him  to  keep  back.  For  me,  I 
43 


Milton 

have  determined  to  lay  up  as  the  best  treas- 
ure and  solace  of  a  good  old  age,  if  God 
vouchsafe  it  me,  the  honest  liberty  of  free 
speech  from  my  youth,  where  I  shall  think 
it  available  in  so  dear  a  concernment  as  the 
church's  good.  For  if  I  be,  either  by  disposi- 
tion or  -what  other  cause,  too  inquisitive,  or 
suspicious  of  myself  and  mine  own  doings, 
who  can  help  it?  But  this  I  foresee,  that 
should  the  church  be  brought  under  heavy 
oppression,  and  God  have  given  me  ability 
the  while  to  reason  against  that  man  that 
should  be  the  author  of  so  foul  a  deed ;  or 
should  she,  by  blessing  from  above  on  the 
industry  and  courage  of  faithful  men,  change 
this  her  distracted  estate  into  better  days, 
without  the  least  furtherance  or  contribution 
of  those  few  talents,  which  God  at  that 
present  had  lent  me;  I  foresee  what  stories 
I  should  hear  within  myself,  all  my  life  after, 
of  discourage  and  reproach.  Timorous  and 
ungrateful,  the  church  of  God  is  now  again 
at  the  foot  of  her  insulting  enemies,  and  thou 
bewailest.  What  matters  it  for  thee,  or  thy 
bewailing?  When  time  was,  thou  couldst 
not  find  a  syllable  of  all  that  thou  hast  read, 
or  studied,  to  utter  in  her  behalf.  Yet  ease 
and  leisure  was  given  thee  for  thy  retired 
thoughts,  out  of  the  sweat  of  other  men. 
Thou  hast  the  diligence,  the  parts,  the  lan- 
guage of  a  man,  if  a  vain  subject  were  to  be 
adorned  or  beautified ;  but  when  the  cause  of 
44 


His  Dedication  to  Truth 

God  and  his  church  was  to  be  pleaded,  for 
•which  purpose  that  tongue  was  given  thee 
which  thou  hast,  God  listened  if  he  could 
hear  thy  voice  among  his  zealous  servants, 
but  thou  wert  dumb  as  a  beast ;  from  hence- 
forward be  that  which  thine  own  brutish 
silence  hath  made  thee.  Or  else  I  should 
have  heard  on  the  other  ear:  Slothful,  and 
ever  to  be  set  light  by,  the  church  hath  now 
overcome  her  late  distresses  after  the  un- 
wearied labors  of  many  her  true  servants 
that  stood  up  in  her  defence;  thou  also 
wouldst  take  upon  thee  to  share  amongst 
them  of  their  joy:  but  wherefore  thou? 
Where  canst  thou  show  any  word  or  deed  of 
thine  which  might  have  hastened  her  peace? 
Whatever  thou  dost  now  talk,  or  write,  or 
look,  is  the  alms  of  other  men's  active  pru- 
dence and  zeal.  Dare  not  now  to  say  or 
do  anything  better  than  thy  former  sloth 
and  infancy ;  or  if  thou  darest,  thou  dost 
impudently  to  make  a  thrifty  purchase  of 
boldness  to  thyself,  out  of  the  painful  merits 
of  other  men;  what  before  was  thy  sin  is 
now  thy  duty,  to  be  abject  and  worthless. 
These,  and  such-like  lessons  as  these,  I  know 
would  have  been  my  matins  duly,  and  my 
even-song.  But  now  by  this  little  diligence, 
mark  what  a  privilege  I  have  gained  with 
good  men  and  saints,  to  claim  my  right  of 
lamenting  the  tribulations  of  the  church,  if 
she  should  suffer,  when  others,  that  have 
45 


Milton 

ventured  nothing  for  her  sake,  have  not  the 
honor  to  be  admitted  mourners.  But  if 
she  lift  up  her  drooping  head  and  prosper, 
among  those  that  have  something  more  than 
wished  her  welfare,  I  have  my  charter  and 
freehold  of  rejoicing  to  me  and  my  heirs. 
Concerning  therefore  this  wayward  subject 
against  prelaty,  the  touching  whereof  is  so 
distasteful  and  disquietous  to  a  number  of 
men,  as  by  what  hath  been  said  I  may  de- 
serve of  charitable  readers  to  be  credited, 
that  neither  envy  nor  gall  hath  entered  me 
upon  this  controversy,  but  the  enforcement 
of  conscience  only,  and  a  preventive  fear  lest 
the  omitting  of  this  duty  should  be  against 
me,  when  I  would  store  up  to  myself  the 
good  provision  of  peaceful  hours :  so,  lest  it 
should  be  still  imputed  to  me,  as  I  have 
found  it  hath  been,  that  some  self-pleasing 
humor  of  vain-glory  hath  incited  me  to  con- 
test with  men  of  high  estimation,  now  while 
green  years  are  upon  my  head;  from  this 
needless  surmisal  I  shall  hope  to  dissuade  the 
intelligent  and  equal  auditor,  if  I  can  but 
say  successfully  that  which  in  this  exigent 
behoves  me ;  although  I  would  be  heard  only, 
if  it  might  be,  by  the  elegant  and  learned 
reader,  to  whom  principally  for  a  while  I 
shall  beg  leave  I  may  address  myself.  To 
him  it  will  be  no  new  thing,  though  I  tell 
him  that  if,  I  hunted  after  praise,  by  the 
ostentation  of  wit  and  learning,  I  should  not 
46 


His   Dedication   to  Truth 

write  thus  out  of  mine  own  season  when  I 
have  neither  yet  completed  to  my  mind  the 
full  circle  of  my  private  studies,  although  I 
complain  not  of  any  insufficiency  to  the  mat- 
ter in  hand;  or  were  I  ready  to  my  wishes, 
it  were  a  folly  to  commit  anything  elabo- 
rately composed  to  the  careless  and  inter- 
rupted listening  of  these  tumultuous  times. 
Next,  if  I  were  wise  only  to  my  own  ends,  I 
would  certainly  take  such  a  subject  as  of 
itself  might  catch  applause,  whereas  this 
hath  all  the  disadvantages  on  the  contrary,, 
and  such  a  subject  as  the  publishing  where- 
of might  be  delayed  at  pleasure,  and  time 
enough  to  pencil  it  over  with  all  the  curious 
touches  of  art,  even  to  the  perfection  of  a 
faultless  picture;  when  as  in  this  argument 
the  not  deferring  is  of  great  moment  to  the 
good  speeding,  that  if  solidity  have  leisure  to 
do  her  office,  art  cannot  have  much.  Lastly, 
I  should  not  choose  this  manner  of  writing, 
wherein  knowing  myself  inferior  to  myself, 
led  by  the  genial  power  of  nature  to  another 
task,  I  have  the  use,  as  I  may  account,  but 
of  my  left  hand.  And  though  I  shall  be 
foolish  in  saying  more  to  this  purpose,  yet, 
since  it  \vill  be  such  a  folly,  as  wisest  men  go 
about  to  commit,  having  only  confessed  and 
so  committed,  I  may  trust  with  more  reason, 
because  with  more  folly,  to  have  courteous 
pardon.  For  although  a  poet,  soaring  in  the 
high  reason  of  his  fancies,  with  his  garland 
47 


Milton 

and  singing  robes  about  him,  might,  without 
apology,  speak  more  of  himself  than  I  mean 
to  do;  }ret  for  me  sitting  here  below  in  the 
cool  element  of  prose,  a  mortal  thing  among 
many  readers  of  no  empyreal  conceit,  to 
venture  and  divulge  unusual  things  of  myself, 
I  shall  petition  to  the  gentler  sort,  it  may 
not  be  envy  to  me.  I  must  say,  therefore, 
that  after  I  had  for  my  first  years,  by  the 
•ceaseless  diligence  and  care  of  my  father, 
(whom  God  recompense!)  been  exercised  to 
the  tongues,  and  some  sciences,  as  my  age 
\vould  suffer,  by  sundry  masters  and  teach- 
ers, both  at  home  and  at  the  schools,  it  was 
found  that  whether  aught  was  imposed  me 
by  them  that  had  the  overlooking,  or  be- 
taken to  of  mine  own  choice  in  English,  or 
other  tongue,  prosing  or  versing,  but  chiefly 
by  this  latter,  the  style,  by  certain  vital 
signs  it  had,  was  likely  to  live.  But  much 
latelier  in  the  private  academies  of  Italy, 
whither  I  was  favored  to  resort,  perceiving 
that  some  trifles  which  I  had  in  memory, 
•composed  at  under  twenty  or  thereabout, 
(for  the  manner  is,  that  every  one  must  give 
some  proof  of  his  wit  and  reading  there,) 
met  with  acceptance  above  what  was  looked 
for;  and  other  things,  which  I  had  shifted  in 
scarcity  of  books  and  conveniences  to  patch 
tip  amongst  them,  were  received  with  writ- 
ten encomiums,  which  the  Italian  is  not  for- 
ward to  bestow  on  men  of  this  side  the 
48 


His   Dedication  to  Truth 

Alps ;  I  began  thus  far  to  assent  both  to 
them  and  divers  of  my  friends  here  at  home, 
and  not  less  to  an  inward  prompting  which 
now  grew  daily  upon  me,  that  by  labor  and 
intense  study,  (which  I  take  to  be  my  por- 
tion in  this  life,)  joined  with  the  strong 
propensity  of  nature,  I  might  perhaps  leave 
something  so  \vritten  to  aftertimes,  as  they 
should  not  willingly  let  it  die.  These 
thoughts  at  once  possessed  me,  and  these 
other;  that  if  I  were  certain  to  \vrite  as  men 
buy  leases,  for  three  lives  and  downward, 
there  ought  no  regard  be  sooner  had  than  to 
God's  glory,  by  the  honor  and  instruction 
of  my  country.  For  \vhich  cause,  and  not 
only  for  that  I  knew  it  would  be  hard  to 
arrive  at  the  second  rank  among  the  Latins, 
I  applied  myself  to  that  resolution,  which 
Ariosto  followed  against  the  persuasions  of 
Bembo,  to  fix  all  the  industry  and  art  I 
could  unite  to  the  adorning  of  my  native 
tongue ;  not  to  make  verbal  curiosities  the 
end,  (that  \vere  a  toilsome  vanity,)  but  to  be 
an  interpreter  and  relater  of  the  best  and 
sagest  things  among  mine  own  citizens 
throughout  this  island  in  the  mother  dialect. 
That  what  the  greatest  and  choicest  wits  of 
Athens,  Rome,  or  modern  Italy,  and  those 
Hebrews  of  old  did  for  their  country,  I,  in 
my  proportion,  with  this  over  and  above,  of 
being  a  Christian,  might  do  for  mine;  not 
caring  to  be  once  named  abroad,  though 
4  49 


Milton 

perhaps  I  could  attain  to  that,  but  content 
with  these  British  islands  as  my  world; 
whose  fortune  hath  hitherto  been,  that  if  the 
Athenians,  as  some  say,  made  their  small 
deeds  great  and  renowned  by  their  eloquent 
writers,  England  hath  had  her  noble  achieve- 
ments made  small  by  the  unskilful  handling 
of  monks  and  mechanics. 

Time  serves  not  now,  and  perhaps  I  might 
seem  too  profuse  to  give  any  certain  account 
of  what  the  mind  at  home,  in  the  spacious 
circuits  of  her  musing,  hath  liberty  to  pro- 
pose to  herself,  though  of  highest  hope  and 
hardest  attempting;  whether  that  epic  form 
whereof  the  two  poems  of  Homer,  and  those 
other  two  of  Virgil  and  Tasso,  are  a  diffuse, 
and  the  book  of  Job  a  brief  model :  or 
whether  the  rules  of  Aristotle  herein  are 
strictly  to  be  kept,  or  nature  to  be  followed, 
which  in  them  that  know  art,  and  use  judg- 
ment, is  no  transgression,  but  an  enriching 
of  art :  and  lastly,  what  king  or  knight,  be- 
fore the  Conquest,  might  be  chosen  in  whom 
to  lay  the  pattern  of  a  Christian  hero.  And 
as  Tasso  gave  to  a  prince  of  Italy  his  choice 
whether  he  would  command  him  to  write  of 
Godfrey's  expedition  against  the  Infidels,  or 
Belisarius  against  the  Goths,  or  Charlemain 
against  the  Lombards ;  if  to  the  instinct  of 
nature  and  the  emboldening  of  art  aught 
may  be  trusted,  and  that  there  be  nothing 
adverse  in  our  climate,  or  the  fate  of  this 
50 


His  Dedication  to  Truth 

age,  it  haply  would  be  no  rashness,  from  an 
equal  diligence  and  inclination,  to  present 
the  like  offer  in  our  own  ancient  stories; 
or  whether  those  dramatic  constitutions, 
wherein  Sophocles  and  Euripides  reign,  shall 
be  found  more  doctrinal  and  exemplary  to 
a  nation.  The  scripture  also  affords  us  a 
divine  pastoral  drama  in  the  Song  of  Solo- 
mon, consisting  of  two  persons,  and  a  double 
chorus,  as  Origen  rightly  judges.  And  the 
Apocalypse  of  St.  John  is  the  majestic  image 
of  a  high  and  stately  tragedy,  shutting  up 
and  intermingling  her  solemn  scenes  and  acts 
with  a  sevenfold  chorus  of  hallelujahs  and 
harping  symphonies:  and  this  my  opinion 
the  grave  authority  of  Pareus,  commenting 
that  book,  is  sufficient  to  confirm.  Or  if 
occasion  shall  lead,  to  imitate  those  magnific 
odes  and  hymns,  wherein  Pindarus  and  Cal- 
limachus  are  in  most  things  worthy,  some 
others  in  their  frame  judicious,  in  their  mat' 
ter  most  an  end  faulty.  But  those  frequent 
songs  throughout  the  law  and  prophets  be- 
yond all  these,  not  in  their  divine  argument 
alone,  but  in  the  very  critical  art  of  composi- 
tion, may  be  easily  made  appear  over  all  the 
kinds  of  lyric  poesy  to  be  incomparable, 
These  abilities,  wheresoever  they  be  found, 
are  the  inspired  gift  of  God,  rarely  bestowed, 
but  yet  to  some  (though  most  abuse)  in 
every  nation;  and  are  of  power,  beside  the 
office  of  a  pulpit,  to  imbreed  and  cherish  in  a 
51 


Milton 

great  people  the  seeds  of  virtue  and  public 
civility,  to  allay  the  perturbations  of  the 
mind,  and  set  the  affections  in  right  tune ;  to 
celebrate  in  glorious  and  lofty  hymns  the 
throne  and  equipage  of  God's  almightiness, 
and  \vhat  he  works,  and  what  he  suffers  to 
be  \vrought  with  high  providence  in  his 
church;  to  sing  victorious  agonies  of  martyrs 
and  saints,  the  deeds  and  triumphs  of  just 
and  pious  nations,  doing  valiantly  through 
faith  against  the  enemies  of  Christ;  to  de- 
plore the  general  relapses  of  kingdoms  and 
states  from  justice  and  God's  true  worship. 
Lastly,  whatsoever  in  religion  is  holy  and 
sublime,  in  virtue  amiable  or  grave,  whatso- 
ever hath  passion  or  admiration  in  all  the 
changes  of  that  which  is  called  fortune  from 
without,  or  the  wily  subtleties  and  refluxes 
of  man's  thoughts  from  within;  all  these 
things  with  a  solid  and  treatable  smooth- 
ness to  paint  out  and  describe.  Teaching 
over  the  whole  book  of  sanctity  and  virtue, 
through  all  the  instances  of  example,  with 
such  delight  to  those  especially  of  soft  and 
delicious  temper,  who  will  not  so  much  as 
look  upon  truth  herself,  unless  they  see  her 
elegantly  dressed ;  that  whereas  the  paths  of 
honesty  and  good  life  appear  now  rugged 
and  difficult,  though  they  be  indeed  easy  and 
pleasant,  they  will  then  appear  to  all  men 
both  easy  and  pleasant,  though  they  were 
rugged  and  difficult  indeed.  And  what  a 
52 


His  Dedication  to  Truth 

benefit  this  would  be  to  our  youth  and 
gentry,  may  be  soon  guessed  by  what  we 
know  of  the  corruption  and  bane  which 
they  suck  in  daily  from  the  writings  and 
interludes  of  libidinous  and  ignorant  poet- 
asters, who  having  scarce  ever  heard  of  that 
which  is  the  main  consistence  of  a  true  poem, 
the  choice  of  such  persons  as  they  ought  to 
introduce,  and  what  is  moral  and  decent  to 
each  one ;  do  for  the  most  part  lay  up  vicious 
principles  in  sweet  pills  to  be  swallowed 
down,  and  make  the  taste  of  virtuous  docu- 
ments harsh  and  sour.  But  because  the 
spirit  of  man  cannot  demean  itself  lively  in 
this  body,  without  some  recreating  intermis- 
sion of  labor  and  serious  things,  it  were 
happy  for  the  commonwealth,  if  our  magis- 
trates, as  in  those  famous  governments  of 
old,  would  take  into  their  care,  not  only  the 
deciding  of  our  contentious  law-cases  and 
brawls,  but  the  managing  of  our  public 
sports  and  festival  pastimes;  that  they 
might  be,  not  such  as  were  authorized  a 
while  since,  the  provocations  of  drunkenness 
and  lust,  but  such  as  may  inure  and  harden 
our  bodies  by  martial  exercises  to  all  \varlike 
skill  and  performance;  and  may  civilize, 
adorn,  and  make  discreet  our  minds  by  the 
learned  and  affable  meeting  of  frequent  acad- 
emies, and  the  procurement  of  wise  and  art- 
ful recitations,  sweetened  with  eloquent  and 
graceful  enticements  to  the  love  and  practice 
53 


Milton 

of  justice,  temperance,  and  fortitude,  in- 
structing and  bettering  the  nation  at  all 
opportunities,  that  the  call  of  wisdom  and 
virtue  may  be  heard  everywhere,  as  Solomon 
saith:  "She  crieth  without,  she  uttereth  her 
voice  in  the  streets,  in  the  top  of  high  places, 
in  the  chief  concourse,  and  in  the  openings  of 
the  gates."  Whether  this  may  not  be,  not 
only  in  pulpits,  but  after  another  persuasive 
method,  at  set  and  solemn  paneguries,  in 
theatres,  porches,  or  what  other  place  or 
way  may  win  most  upon  the  people  to  re- 
ceive at  once  both  recreation  and  instruction, 
let  them  in  authority  consult.  The  thing 
which  I  had  to  say  and  those  intentions 
•which  have  lived  within  me  ever  since  I 
could  conceive  myself  anything  worth  to  my 
country,  I  return  to  crave  excuse  that  urgent 
reason  hath  plucked  from  me,  by  an  abortive 
and  foredated  discovery.  And  the  accom- 
plishment of  them  lies  not  but  in  a  power 
above  man's  to  promise;  but  that  none; 
hath  by  more  studious  ways  endeavored, 
and  with  more  unwearied  spirit  that  none 
shall,  that  I  dare  almost  aver  of  myself,  as 
far  as  life  and  free  leisure  will  extend;  and 
that  the  land  had  once  enfranchised  herself 
from  this  impertinent  yoke  of  prelaty,  under 
whose  inquisitorious  and  tyrannical  duncery, 
no  free  and  splendid  wit  can  flourish.  Nei- 
ther do  I  think  it  shame  to  covenant  with 
any  knowing  reader,  that  for  some  few  years 
54 


His   Dedication  to  Truth 

yet  I  may  go  on  trust  with  him  toward  the 
payment  of  what  I  am  now  indebted,  as 
being  a  work  not  to  be  raised  from  the  heat 
of  youth,  or  the  vapors  of  wine;  like  that 
which  flows  at  waste  from  the  pen  of  some 
vulgar  amorist,  or  the  trencher  fury  of  a 
rhyming  parasite ;  nor  to  be  obtained  by  the , 
invocation  of  dame  Memory  and  her  siren 
•daughters,  but  by  devout  prayer  to  that 
eternal  Spirit,  who  can  enrich  with  all  utter- 
.ance  and  knowledge,  and  sends  out  his  sera- 
phim, with  the  hallowed  fire  of  his  altar,  to 
touch  and  purify  the  lips  of  whom  he  pleases : 
to  this  must  be  added  industrious  and  select 
reading,  steady  observation,  insight  into  all 
seemly  and  generous  arts  and  affairs;  till 
which  in  some  measure  be  compassed,  at 
mine  own  peril  and  cost,  I  refuse  not  to  sus- 
tain this  expectation  from  as  many  as  are 
not  loth  to  hazard  so  much  credulity  upon 
the  best  pledges  that  I  can  give  them.  Al- 
though it  nothing  content  me  to  have  dis- 
closed thus  much  beforehand,  but  that  I 
trust  hereby  to  make  it  manifest  with  what 
small  willingness  I  endure  to  interrupt  the 
pursuit  of  no  less  hopes  than  these,  and  leave 
a  calm  and  pleasing  solitariness,  fed  with 
cheerful  and  confident  thoughts,  to  embark 
in  a  troubled  sea  of  noises  and  hoarse  dis- 
putes, put  from  beholding  the  bright  counte- 
nance of  truth  in  the  quiet  and  still  air  of 
delightful  studies,  to  come  into  the  dim  re- 


Milton 

flection  of  hollow  antiquities  sold  by  the 
seeming  bulk,  and  there  be  fain  to  club  quo- 
tations \vith  men  whose  learning  and  belief 
lies  in  marginal  stuffings,  who,  when  they 
have,  like  good  sumpters,  laid  ye  down  their 
horse-loads  of  citations  and  fathers  at  your 
door  with  a  rhapsody  of  who  and  who  were 
bishops  here  or  there,  ye  may  take  off  their 
packsaddles,  their  day's  work  is  done,  and 
episcopacy,  as  they  think,  stoutly  vindicated. 
Let  any  gentle  apprehension,  that  can  dis- 
tinguish learned  pains  from  unlearned  drudg- 
ery imagine  what  pleasure  or  profoundness 
can  be  in  this,  or  what  honor  to  deal 
against  such  adversaries.  But  were  it  the 
meanest  under-service,  if  God  by  his  secretary 
conscience  enjoin  it,  it  were  sad  for  me  if  I 
should  draw  back;  for  me  especially,  now 
when  all  men  offer  their  aid  to  help,  ease, 
and  lighten  the  difficult  labors  of  the  church, 
to  whose  service,  by  the  intentions  of  my 
parents  and  friends,  I  was  destined  of  a  child, 
and  in  mine  own  resolutions:  till  coming  to 
some  maturity  of  years,  and  perceiving  what 
tyranny  had  invaded  the  church,  that  he 
who  would  take  orders  must  subscribe  slave, 
and  take  an  oath  withal,  which,  unless  he 
took  with  a  conscience  that  would  retch,  he 
must  either  straight  perjure,  or  split  his 
faith;  I  thought  it  better  to  prefer  a  blame- 
less silence  before  the  sacred  office  of  speak- 
ing, bought  and  begun  with  servitude 
56 


His   Dedication  to  Truth 

and  forswearing.  Howsoever,  thus  church- 
outed  by  the  prelates,  hence  may  appear 
the  right  I  have  to  meddle  in  these  matters, 
as  before  the  necessity  and  constraint  ap- 
peared. 


57 


True  Marriage 


59 


TRUE  MARRIAGE. 
The  Fourth  Reason. 

[Chapter  VI.,  Book  I.,  of  "The  Doctrine  and  Dis- 
cipline of  Divorce."  Milton  believed  that  divorce 
should  be  permitted  for  other  grounds  besides 
those  recognized  by  the  canon  law.  The  unhappy 
circumstances  attendant  upon  his  first  marriage 
undoubtedly  turned  his  mind  to  the  consideration 
of  the  subject.  The  marriage  took  place  in  the 
summer  of  1 643,  but  Milton's  wife,  who  wras  only 
seventeen,  left  him  shortly  after  the  ceremony  and 
remained  for  two  years  an  inmate  of  her  mother's 
household.  In  1645  he  received  her  back,  and  she 
became  the  mother  of  his  daughters.  It  is  possi- 
ble that  "The  Doctrine  and  Discipline  of  Divorce" 
dates  from  the  very  summer  of  the  marriage ;  an 
enlarged  edition  certainly  appeared  in  the  next 
February,  1644.] 

FOURTHLY,  Marriage  is  a  covenant,  the  very 
being  whereof  consists  not  in  a  forced  cohabi- 
tation, and  counterfeit  performance  of  duties, 
but  in  unfeigned  love  and  peace:  and  of 
matrimonial  love,  no  doubt  but  that  was 
chiefly  meant,  which  by  the  ancient  sages 
was  thus  parabled;  that  Love,  if  he  be  not 
twin  born,  yet  hath  a  brother  wondrous 
like  him,  called  Anteros;  whom  while  he 
seeks  all  about,  his  chance  is  to  meet  with 
many  false  and  feigning  desires,  that  wander 
singly  up  and  down  in  his  likeness :  by  them 
61 


Milton 

in  their  borrowed  garb,  Love,  though  not 
wholly  blind,  as  poets  wrong  him,  yet  hav- 
ing but  one  eye,  as  being  born  an  archer 
aiming,  and  that  eye  not  the  quickest  in  this 
dark  region  here  below,  \vhich  is  not  Love's 
proper  sphere,  partly  out  of  the  simplicity 
and  credulity  which  is  native  to  Him,  often 
deceived,  embraces  and  consorts  him  with 
these  obvious  and  suborned  striplings,  as  if 
they  were  his  mother's  own  sons;  for  so  he 
thinks  them,  while  they  subtlely  keep  them- 
selves most  on  his  blind  side.  But  after  a 
•while,  as  his  manner  is,  "when  soaring  up  into 
the  high  tower  of  his  Apogaeum,  above  the 
shadow  of  the  earth,  he  darts  out  the  direct 
rays  of  his  then  most  piercing  eyesight  upon 
the  impostures  and  trim  disguises  that  were 
used  with  him,  and  discerns  that  this  is  not 
his  genuine  brother,  as  he  imagined ;  he  has 
no  longer  the  power  to  hold  fellowship  with 
such  a  personated  mate:  for  straight  his 
arrows  lose  their  golden  heads,  and  shed 
their  purple  feathers,  his  silken  braids  un- 
twine, and  slip  their  knots,  and  that  original 
and  fiery  virtue  given  him  by  fate  all  on  a 
sudden  goes  out,  and  leaves  him  undeified 
and  despoiled  of  all  his  force;  till  finding 
Anteros  at  last,  he  kindles  and  repairs  the 
almost-faded  ammunition  of  his  deity  by  the 
reflection  of  a  coequal  and  homogeneal  fire. 
Thus  mine  author  sung  it  to  me :  and  by  the 
leave  of  those  who  would  be  counted  the 
62 


True   Marriage 

only  grave  ones,  this  is  no  mere  amatorious 
novel;  (though  to  be  wise  and  skilful  in  these 
matters,  men  heretofore  of  greatest  name  in 
virtue  have  esteemed  it  one  of  the  highest 
arcs,  that  human  contemplation  circling  up- 
wards can  make  from  the  globy  sea  whereon 
she  stands;)  but  this  is  a  deep  and  serious 
verity,  showing  us  that  love  in  marriage 
cannot  live  nor  subsist  unless  it  be  mutual; 
and  where  love  cannot  be,  there  can  be  left 
of  wedlock  nothing  but  the  empty  husk  of  an 
outside  matrimony,  as  undelightful  and  un- 
pleasing  to  God  as  any  other  kind  of  hypoc- 
risy. So  far  is  his  command  from  tying  men 
to  the  observance  of  duties  \vhich  there  is  no 
help  for,  but  they  must  be  dissembled.  If 
Solomon's  advice  be  not  over-frolic,  "Live 
joyfully,"  saith  he,  "with  the  wife  whom 
thou  lovest,  all  thy  days,  for  that  is  thy 
portion:"  how  then,  where  we  find  it  im- 
possible to  rejoice  or  to  love,  can  we  obey 
this  precept?  How  miserably  do  we  defraud 
ourselves  of  that  comfortable  portion,  which 
God  gives  us,  by  striving  vainly  to  glue  an 
error  together,  which  God  and  nature  will 
not  join,  adding  but  more  vexation  and 
violence  to  that  blissful  society  by  our  im- 
portunate superstition,  that  will  not  hearken 
to  St.  Paul,  1  Cor.  vii.,  who,  speaking  of 
marriage  and  divorce,  determines  plain 
enough  in  general,  that  God  therein  "hath 
called  us  to  peace,  and  not  to  bondage!" 
63 


Milton 

Yea,  God  himself  commands  in  his  law  more 
than  once,  and  by  his  prophet'  Malachi,  as 
Calvin  and  the  best  translations  read,  that 
"he  who  hates,  let  him  divorce,"  that  is,  he 
who  cannot  love.  Hence  it  is  that  the  rab- 
bins, and  Maimonides,  famous  among  the 
rest,  in  a  book  of  his  set  forth  by  Buxtor- 
•fius,  tells  us,  that  "divorce  was  permitted  by 
Moses  to  preserve  peace  in  marriage,  and 
quiet  in  the  family."  Surely  the  Jews  had 
their  saving  peace  about  them  as  well  as 
we;  yet  care  was  taken  that  this  wholesome 
provision  for  household  peace  should  also  be 
allowed  them :  and  must  this  be  denied  to 
Christians?  0  perverseness !  that  the  law 
should  be  made  more  provident  of  peace- 
making than  the  gospel !  that  the  gospel 
should  be  put  to  beg  a  most  necessary  help 
of  mercy  from  the  law,  but  must  not  have 
it !  and  that  to  grind  in  the  mill  of  an  un- 
delighted  and  servile  copulation,  must  be  the 
only  forced  work  of  a  Christian  marriage, 
ofttimes  with  such  a  yokefellow,  from  whom 
both  love  and  peace,  both  nature  and  relig- 
ion mourns  to  be  separated.  I  cannot  there- 
fore be  so  diffident,  as  not  securely  to  con- 
clude that  he  who  can  receive  nothing  of  the 
most  important  helps  in  marriage,  being 
thereby  disenabled  to  return  that  duty  which 
is  his,  with  a  clear  and  hearty  countenance, 
and  thus  continues  to  grieve  whom  he  would 
not,  and  is  no  less  grieved ;  that  man  ought 
64, 


True  Marriage 

even  for  love's  sake  and  peace  to  move 
divorce  upon  good  and  liberal  conditions  to 
the  divorced.  And  it  is  a  less  breach  of  wed- 
lock to  part  with  wise  and  quiet  consent 
betimes,  than  still  to  foil  and  profane  that 
mystery  of  joy  and  union  with  a  polluting 
sadness  and  perpetual  distemper:  for  it  is 
not  the  outward  continuing  of  marriage  that 
keeps  whole  that  covenant,  but  whatsoever 
does  most  according  to  peace  and  love, 
whether  in  marriage  or  in  divorce,  he  it  is 
that  breaks  marriage  least ;  it  being  so  often 
written,  that  "Love  only  is  the  fulfilling  of 
every  commandment." 
5 


65 


Political 


67 


THE  ENGLISH  REFORMATION 

[The    opening   and   closing  passages  from  the 
pamphlet  "Of  Reformation  in  England,"  1641.] 

Sir, —  Amidst  those  deep  and  retired 
thoughts,  which,  with  every  man  Christianly 
instructed,  ought  to  be  most  frequent  of 
God,  and  of  his  miraculous  ways  and  work 
amongst  men,  and  of  our  religion  and  works, 
to  be  performed  to  him ;  after  the  story  of 
our  Saviour  Christ,  suffering  to  the  lowest 
bent  of  \veakness  in  the  flesh,  and  presently 
triumphing  to  the  highest  pitch  of  glory  in 
the  spirit,  which  drew  up  his  body  also ;  till 
we  in  both  be  united  to  him  in  the  revela- 
tion of  his  kingdom,  I  do  not  know  of  any- 
thing more  worthy  to  take  up  the  whole 
passion  of  pity  on  the  one  side,  and  joy  on 
the  other,  than  to  consider  first  the  foul  and 
sudden  corruption,  and  then,  after  many  a 
tedious  age,  the  long  deferred,  but  much 
more  wonderful  and  happy  reformation  of 
the  church  in  these  latter  days.  Sad  it  is 
to  think  how  that  doctrine  of  the  gospel 
planted  by  teachers  divinely  inspired,  and  by 
them  winnowed  and  sifted  from  the  chaff  of 
overdated  ceremonies,  and  refined  to  such  a 
spiritual  height  and  temper  of  purity,  and 
69 


Milton 

knowledge  of  the  Creator,  that  the  body, 
with  all  the  circumstances  of  time  and  place, 
were  purified  by  the  affections  of  the  regener- 
ate soul,  and  nothing  left  impure  but  sin; 
faith  needing  not  the  weak  and  fallible  of- 
fice of  the  senses,  to  be  either  the  ushers 
or  interpreters  of  heavenly  mysteries,  save 
where  our  Lord  himself  in  his  sacraments 
ordained;  that  such  a  doctrine  should, 
through  the"  grossness  and  blindness  of  her 
professors,  and  the  fraud  of  deceivable  tradi- 
tions, drag  so  downwards,  as  to  backslide 
one  way  into  the  Jewish  beggary  of  old  cast 
rudiments,  and  stumble  forward  another 
way  into  the  new-vomited  paganism  of 
sensual  idolatry,  attributing  purity  or  im- 
purity to  things  indifferent,  that  they  might 
bring  the  inward  acts  of  the  spirit  to  the 
outward  and  customary  eye-service  of  the 
body,  as  if  they  could  make  God  earthly  and 
fleshly,  because  they  could  not  make  them- 
selves heavenly  and  spiritual :  they  began  to 
draw  down  all  the  divine  intercourse  betwixt 
God  and  the  soul,  yea,  the  very  shape  of 
God  himself,  into  an  exterior  and  bodily 
form,  urgently  pretending  a  necessity  and 
obligement  of  joining  the  bod}'  in  a  formal 
reverence  and  worship  circumscribed ;  they 
hallowed  it,  they  fumed  up,  they  sprinkled 
it,  they  bedecked  it,  not  in  robes  of  pure 
innocency,  but  of  pure  linen,  with  other  de- 
formed and  fantastic  dresses,  in  palls  and 
70 


The  English  Reformation 

mitres,  gold,  and  gewgaws  fetched  from 
Aaron's  old  \vardrobe,  or  the  flamins  vestry : 
then  was  the  priest  set  to  con  his  motions 
and  his  postures,  his  liturgies  and  his  lurries, 
till  the  soul  by  this  means  of  overbodying 
herself,  given  up  justly  to  fleshly  delights, 
bated  her  wing  apace  downward :  and  find- 
ing the  ease  she  had  from  her  visible  and 
sensuous  colleague,  the  body,  in  performance 
of  religious  duties,  her  pinions  now  broken, 
and  flagging,  shifted  off  from  herself  the 
labor  of  high  soaring  any  more,  forgot  her 
heavenly  flight,  and  left  the  dull  and  droiling 
carcase  to  plod  on  in  the  old  road,  and 
drudging  trade  of  outward  conformity.  And 
here  out  of  question  from  her  perverse  con- 
ceiting of  God  and  holy  things,  she  had  fallen 
to  believe  no  God  at  all,  had  not  custom  and 
the  worm  of  conscience  nipped  her  incre- 
dulity :  hence  to  all  the  duties  of  evangelical 
grace,  instead  of  the  adoptive  and  cheerful 
boldness  which  our  new  alliance  with  God 
requires,  came  servile  and  thrallike  fear:  for 
in  very  deed,  the  superstitious  man  by  his 
good  will  is  an  atheist;  but  being  scared 
from  thence  by  the  pangs  and  gripes  of  a 
boiling  conscience,  all  in  a  pudder  shuffles  up 
to  himself  such  a  God  and  such  a  \vorship 
as  is  most  agreeable  to  remedy  his  fear; 
which  fear  of  his,  as  also  is  his  hope,  fixed 
only  upon  the  flesh,  renders  likewise  the 
whole  faculty  of  his  apprehension  carnal; 
71 


Milton 

and  all  the  inward  acts  of  worship,  issuing 
from  the  native  strength  of  the  soul,  run  out 
lavishly  to  the  upper  skin,  and  there  harden 
into  a  crust  of  formality.  Hence  men  came 
to  scan  the  scriptures  by  the  letter,  and  in 
the  covenant  of  our  redemption,  magnified 
the  external  signs  more  than  the  quickening 
power  of  the  Spirit;  and  yet,  looking  on 
them  through  their  own  guiltiness  with  a 
servile  fear,  and  finding  as  little  comfort,  or 
rather  terror  from  them  again,  they  knew 
not  how  to  hide  their  slavish  approach  to 
God's  behests,  by  them  not  understood,  nor 
worthily  received,  but  by  cloaking  their  ser- 
vile crouching  to  all  religious  presentments, 
sometimes  lawful,  sometimes  idolatrous, 
under  the  name  of  humility,  and  terming 
the  piebald  frippery  and  ostentation  of  cere- 
monies, decency. 

Then  was  baptism  changed  into  a  kind  of 
exorcism,  and  water,  sanctified  by  Christ's 
institute,  thought  little  enough  to  wash  off 
the  original  spot,  without  the  scratch  or 
cross  impression  of  a  priest's  forefinger:  and 
that  feast  of  free  grace  and  adoption  to 
which  Christ  invited  his  disciples  to  sit  as 
brethren,  and  coheirs  of  the  happy  covenant, 
which  at  that  table  was  to  be  sealed  to 
them,  even  that  feast  of  love  and  heavenly- 
admitted  fellowship,  the  seal  of  filial  grace, 
became  the  subject  of  horror,  and  glouting 
adoration,  pageanted  about  like  a  dreadful 
72 


The  English  Reformation 

idol ;  which  sometimes  deceives  well-meaning 
men,  and  beguiles  them  of  their  reward,  by 
their  voluntary  humility;  which  indeed  is 
fleshly  pride,  preferring  a  foolish  sacrifice, 
and  the  rudiments  of  the  world,  as  St.  Paul 
to  the  Colossians  explaineth,  before  a  sa- 
voury obedience  to  Christ's  example.  Such 
was  Peter's  unseasonable  humility,  as  then 
his  knowledge  was  small,  when  Christ  came 
to  wash  his  feet ;  who  at  an  impertinent 
time  would  strain  courtesy  with  his  master, 
and  falling  troublesomely  upon  the  lowly, 
all -wise,  and  unexaminable  intention  of 
Christ,  in  what  he  went  with  resolution  to 
do,  so  provoked  by  his  interruption  the  meek 
Lord,  that  he  threatened  to  exclude  him  from 
his  heavenly  portion,  unless  he  could  be  con- 
tent to  be  less  arrogant  and  stiffhecked  in  his 
humility. 

But  to  dwell  no  longer  in  characterizing 
the  depravities  of  the  church,  and  how  they 
sprung,  and  how  they  took  increase ;  when  I 
recall  to  mind  at  last,  after  so  many  dark 
ages,  wherein  the  huge  overshadowing  train 
of  error  had  almost  swept  all  the  stars  out 
of  the  firmament  of  the  church ;  how  the 
bright  and  blissful  Reformation  (by  divine 
power)  struck  through  the  black  and  settled 
night  of  ignorance  and  antichristian  tyr- 
anny, methinks  a  sovereign  and  reviving 
joy  must  needs  rush  into  the  bosom  of  him 
that  reads  or  hears;  and  the  sweet  odor  of 
73 


Milton 

the  returning  gospel  imbathe  his  soul  with 
the  fragrancy  of  heaven.  Then  was  the 
sacred  Bible  sought  out  of  the  dusty  corners 
where  profane  falsehood  and  neglect  had 
thrown  it,  the  schools  opened,  divine  and 
human  learning  raked  out  of  the  embers  of 
forgotten  tongues,  the  princes  and  cities 
trooping  apace  to  the  new  erected  banner  of 
salvation ;  the  martyrs,  with  the  unresistible 
might  of  weakness,  shaking  the  powers  of 
darkness,  and  scorning  the  fiery  rage  of  the 
old  red  dragon. 


Thou,  therefore,  that  sittest  in  light  and 
glory  unapproachable,  parent  of  angels  and 
men !  next,  thee  I  implore,  omnipotent  King, 
Redeemer  of  that  lost  remnant  whose  nature 
thou  didst  assume,  ineffable  and  everlasting 
Love!  and  thou,  the  third  subsistence  of 
divine  infinitude,  illumining  Spirit,  the  joy 
and  solace  of  created  things!  one  Tripersonal 
godhead !  look  upon  this  thy  poor  and  al- 
most spent  and  expiring  church,  leave  her 
not  thus  a  prey  to  these  importunate  wolves, 
that  wait  and  think  long  till  they  devour 
thy  tender  flock ;  these  wild  boars  that  have 
broke  into  thy  vineyard,  and  left  the  print 
of  their  polluting  hoofs  on  the  souls  of  thy 
servants.  O  let  them  not  bring  about  their 
damned  designs,  that  stand  now  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  bottomless  pit,  expecting  the 
74 


The  English   Reformation 

watchword  to  open  and  let  out  those  dread- 
ful locusts  and  scorpions,  to  reinvolve  us  in 
that  pitchy  cloud  of  infernal  darkness,  where 
we  shall  never  more  see  the  sun  of  thy  truth 
again,  never  hope  for  the  cheerful  dawn, 
never  more  hear  the  bird  of  morning  sing. 
Be  moved  with  pity  at  the  afflicted  state  of 
this  our  shaken  monarchy,  that  now  lies 
laboring  under  her  throes,  and  struggling 
against  the  grudges  of  more  dreadful  calami- 
ties. 

O  thou,  that,  after  the  impetuous  rage  of 
five  blood\r  inundations,  and  the  succeeding 
sword  of  intestine  war,  soaking  the  land  in 
her  own  gore,  didst  pity  the  sad  and  cease- 
less revolution  of  our  swift  and  thick-coming 
sorrows;  when  we  were  quite  breathless,  of 
thy  free  grace  didst  motion  peace,  and  terms 
of  covenant  with  us ;  and  having  first  well- 
nigh  freed  us  from  antichristian  thraldom, 
didst  build  up  this  Britannic  empire  to  a 
glorious  and  enviable  height,  with  all  her 
daughter-islands  about  her;  stay  us  in  this 
felicity,  let  not  the  obstinacy  of  our  half- 
obedience  and  will-worship  bring  forth  that 
viper  of  sedition,  that  for  these  fourscore 
years  hath  been  breeding  to  eat  through  the 
entrails  of  our  peace;  but  let  her  cast  her 
abortive  spawn  without  the  danger  of  this 
travailing  and  throbbing  kingdom :  that  we 
may  still  remember  in  our  solemn  thanks- 
givings, how  for  us  the  northern  ocean  even 
75 


Milton 

to  the  frozen  Thule  was  scattered  with  the 
proud  shipwrecks  of  the  Spanish  Armada, 
and  the  very  maw  of  hell  ransacked,  and 
made  to  give  up  her  concealed  destruction, 
ere  she  could  vent  it  in  that  horrible  and 
damned  blast. 

0  how  much  more  glorious  will  those 
former  deliverances  appear,  when  we  shall 
know  them  not  only  to  have  saved  us  from 
greatest  miseries  past,  but  to  have  reserved 
us  for  greatest  happiness  to  come !  Hitherto 
thou  hast  but  freed  us,  and  that  not  fully, 
from  the  unjust  and  tyrannous  claim  of  thy 
foes ;  now  unite  us  entirely,  and  appropriate 
us  to  thyself,  tie  us  everlasting!}-  in  willing 
homage  to  the  prerogative  of  thy  eternal 
throne. 

And  now  we  know,  0  thou  our  most  cer- 
tain hope  and  defence,  that  thine  enemies 
have  been  consulting  all  the  sorceries  of  the 
great  whore,  and"  have  joined  their  plots 
with  that  sad  intelligencing  tyrant  that 
mischiefs  the  world  with  his  mines  of  Ophir, 
and  lies  thirsting  to  revenge  his  naval  ruins 
that  have  larded  our  seas:  but  let  them  all 
take  counsel  together,  and  let  it  come  to 
nought ;  let  them  decree,  and  do  thou  cancel 
it ;  let  them  gather  themselves,  and  be  scat- 
tered ;  let  them  embattle  themselves,  and  be 
broken;  let  them  embattle,  and  be  broken, 
for  thou  art  with  us. 

Then,  amidst  the  hymns  and  hallelujahs  of 
76 


The  English  Reformation 

saints,  some  one  may  perhaps  be  heard  offer- 
ing at  high  strains  in  new  and  lofty  measure 
to  sing  and  celebrate  thy  divine  mercies  and 
marvellous  judgments  in  this  land  through- 
out all  ages ;  whereby  this  great  and  warlike 
nation,  instructed  and  inured  to  the  fervent 
and  continual  practice  of  truth  and  right- 
eousness, and  casting  far  from  her  the  rags 
of  her  whole  vices,  may  press  on  hard  to 
that  high  and  happy  emulation,  to  be  found 
the  soberest,  \visest,  and  most  Christian 
people  at  that  day,  when  thou,  the  eternal 
and  shortly  expected  King,  shalt  open  the 
clouds  to  judge  the  several  kingdoms  of  the 
world,  and  distributing  national  honors 
and  rewards  to  religious  and  just  common- 
wealths, shalt  put  an  end  to  all  earthly 
tyrannies,  proclaiming  thy  universal  and 
mild  monarchy  through  heaven  and  earth ; 
where  they  undoubtedly,  that  by  their 
labors,  counsels,  and  prayers,  have  been 
earnest  for  the  common  good  of  religion  and 
their  country,  shall  receive  above  the  inferior 
orders  of  the  blessed,  the  regal  addition  of 
principalities,  legions,  and  thrones  into  their 
glorious  titles,  and  in  supereminence  of  bea- 
tific vision,  progressing  the  dateless  and  irre- 
voluble  circle  of  eternity,  shall  clasp  insepar- 
able hands  with  joy  and  bliss,  in  overmeasure 
for  ever. 

But  they  contrary,  that  by  the  impairing 
and  diminution  of  the  true  faith,    the    dis- 
17 


Milton 

tresses  and  servitude  of  their  country,  aspire 
to  high  dignity,  rule,  and  promotion  here, 
after  a  shameful  end  in  this  life,  (which  God 
grant  them,)  shall  be  thrown  down  eternally 
into  the  darkest  and  deepest  gulf  of  hell, 
where,  under  the  despiteful  control,  the 
trample  and  spurn  of  all  the  other  damned, 
that  in  the  anguish  of  their  torture  shall 
have  no  other  ease  than  to  exercise  a  raving 
and  bestial  tyranny  over  them  as  their  slaves 
and  negroes,  they  shall  remain  in  that  plight 
for  ever,  the  basest,  the  lowermost,  the  most 
dejected,  most  underfoot,  and  downtrodden 
vassals  of  perdition. 


78 


SKETCH  OF  BRADSHAW. 

[From  "The  Second  Defence  of  the  People  of 
England."] 

JOHN  BRADSHAW*  (a  name  which  will  be 
repeated  with  applause  wherever  liberty  is 
cherished  or  is  known)  was  sprung  from  a 
noble  family.  All  his  early  life  he  sedulously 
employed  in  making  himself  acquainted  with 
the  laws  of  his  country;  he  then  practised 
with  singular  success  and  reputation  at  the 
bar ;  he  showed  himself  an  intrepid  and  un- 
wearied advocate  for  the  liberties  of  the 
people:  he  took  an  active  part  in  the  most 
momentous  affairs  of  the  state,  and  occasion- 
ally discharged  the  functions  of  a  judge  with 

*Had  John  Bradshaw  lived  in  any  of  the  free 
states  of  antiquity  he  would  have  had  innumer- 
able statues  erected  to  him,  while  historians  and 
orators  would  have  vied  with  each  other  in  doing 
honor  to  his  memory.  It  has  happened  alto-* 
gether  otherwise.  By  the  accident  of  the  Restora- 
tion, which  gave  a  new  turn  to  the  current  of 
public  opinion,  Bradshaw's  name,  which  could 
not  be  buried  in  oblivion,  was  overwhelmed  with 
obloquy.  As  a  specimen  of  what  was  formerly 
written  against  him,  I  will  cite  a  passage  from 
Anthony  a  Wood,  a  very  good  and  honest  man, 
but  deeply  prejudiced  against  all  those  who  had 
made  a  figure  in  the  Commonwealth.  Speaking 
of  a  law  book  written  by  one  John  March,  he 
79 


Milton 

the  most  inviolable  integrity.  At  last,  when 
he  was  entreated  by  the  parliament  to  pre- 
side in  the  trial  of  the  king,  he  did  not  refuse 
the  dangerous  office.  To  a  profound  knowl- 
edge of  the  law,  he  added  the  most  compre- 
hensive views,  the  most  generous  sentiments, 
manners  the  most  obliging  and  the  most 
pure.  Hence  he  discharged  that  office  with  a 
propriety  almost  without  a  parallel;  he  in- 
spired both  respect  and  awe;  and,  though 
menaced  by  the  daggers  of  so  many  assas- 
sins, he  conducted  himself  with  so  much  con- 
says,  '"Tis  dedicated  to  that  monster  of  men, 
John  Bradshaw,  Sergeant  at  law,  and  Lord 
President  of  the  Council  of  State."  With  the 
flagitious  treatment  of  Bradshaw's  remains  by 
that  profligate  individual  Charles  the  Second, 
most  persons  are  already  acquainted ;  but  it  may, 
nevertheless,  be  worth  while  to  introduce  here 
Anthony  a  Wood's  account  of  the  transaction. 
"The  next  morning  the  carcass  of  John  Brad- 
shaw,  President  of  the  High  Court  of  Justice, 
which  had  been  with  great  solemnity  buried  in 
St.  Peter's  Church,  at  Westminster,  22nd  Novem- 
ber, 1569,  was  carried  in  a  cart  to  Holbourn 
also ;  and  the  next  day  following  that,  which  was 
the  30th  of  January,  on  which  day  King  Charles 
the  First  was  beheaded  in  1648,  they  were  drawn 
to  Tyburn  on  three  several  sledges,  followed  by 
the  universal  outcry  of  the  people.  Afterwards, 
they  being  pulled  out  from  their  coffins,  were 
hanged  at  the  several  angles  of  that  triple  tree, 
where  they  hung  till  the  sun  was  set ;  after  which, 
they  were  taken  down,  their  heads  cut  off,  to  be 
set  on  Westminster  Hall,  and  their  loathsome 
trunks  thrown  into  a  deep  hole  under  the  gal- 
80 


Sketch  of  Bradshaw 

sistency  and  gravity,  with  so  much  presence 
of  mind  and  so  much  dignity  of  demeanor, 
that  he  seems  to  have  been  purposely  des- 
tined by  Providence  for  that  part  which  he 
so  nobly  acted  on  the  theatre  of  the  world. 
And  his  glory  is  as  much  exalted  above  that 
of  all  other  tyrannicides,  as  it  is  both  more 
humane,  more  just,  and  more  strikingly 
grand,  judicially  to  condemn  a  tyrant,  than 
to  put  him  to  death  without  a  trial.  In 
other  respects  there  was  no  forbidding  aus- 
terity, no  moroseness  in  his  manner;  he 

lows,  where  they  now  remain.  At  the  same  time 
Ireton's  tomb  was  broken  down,  and  what 
remained  over  the  graves  of  Cromwell  and  Brad- 
shaw were  clean  swept  away,  and  no  footstep 
left  of  their  remembrances  in  that  royal  and 
stately  burial-place  of  our  English  kings."  To 
show,  however,  the  different  estimation  in  which 
the  same  name  may  be  held  b}-  different  persons, 
I  will  here  introduce  that  eloquent  and  startling 
epitaph  written  by  an  American  on  Bradshaw, 
before  the  Avar  of  independence.  It  is  said  to  have 
been  dated  from  Anapolis,  June  21st,  1773,  and 
to  have  been  engraven  on  a  cannon,  whence 
copies  were  taken  and  hung  up  in  almost  every 
house  in  the  continent  of  America : — 

"STRANGER!  ere  thou  pass,  contemplate  this 
cannon,  nor  regardless  be  told  that  near  its  base 
lies  deposited  the  dust  of  John  Bradshaw,  who, 
nobly  superior  to  selfish  regards,  despising  alike 
the  pageantry  of  courtly  splendour,  the  blast  of 
calumny,  and  the  terror  of  regal  vengeance,  pre- 
sided in  the  illustrious  band  of  heroes  and  patriots 
who  fairly  and  openly  adjudged  Charles  Stuart, 
tyrant  of  England,  to  a  public  and  exemplary 
6  81 


Milton 

•was  courteous  and  benign;  but  the  great 
character  which  he  then  sustained,  he  with 
perfect  consistency  still  sustains,  so  that  you 
would  suppose  that  not  only  then,  but  in 
every  future  period  of  his  life,  he  was  sitting 
in  judgment  upon  the  king.  In  the  public 
business  his  activity  is  unwearied ;  and  he 
alone  is  equal  to  a  host.  At  home  his  hos- 
pitality is  as  splendid  as  his  fortune  will 
permit :  in  his  friendships  there  is  the  most 
inflexible  fidelity;  and  no  one  more  readily 
discerns  merit,  or  more  liberally  rewards  it. 
Men  of  piety  and  learning,  ingenious  persons 
in  all  professions,  those  who  have  been  dis- 
tinguished by  their  courage  or  their  mis- 
fortunes, are  free  to  participate  his  bounty; 
and  if  they  want  not  his  bounty,  they  are 
sure  to  share  his  friendship  and  esteem.  He 
never  ceases  to  extol  the  merits  of  others,  or 
to  conceal  his  own;  and  no  one  was  ever 
more  ready  to  accept  the  excuses,  or  to  par- 
don the  hostility,  of  his  political  opponents. 
If  he  undertake  to  plead  the  cause  of  the 
oppressed,  to  solicit  the  favor  or  deprecate 

death,  thereby  presenting  to  the  amazed  world, 
and  transmitting  down  through  applauding  ages, 
the  most  glorious  example  of  unshaken  virtue, 
love  of  freedom,  and  impartial  justice,  ever  ex- 
hibited on  the  blood-stained  theatre  of  human 
action.  Oh !  reader,  pass  not  on  till  thou  hast 
blest  his  memory,  and  never — never  forget  that 
rebellion  to  tyrants,  is  obedience  to  God." — J.  A. 
St.  John. 

82 


Sketch  of  Bradshaw 

the  resentment  of  the  powerful,  to  reprove 
the  public  ingratitude  towards  any  particular 
individual,  his  address  and  his  perseverance 
are  beyond  all  praise.  On  such  occasions  no 
one  could  desire  a  patron  or  a  friend  more 
able,  more  zealous,  or  more  eloquent.  No 
menace  could  divert  him  from  his  purpose; 
no  intimidation  on  the  one  hand,  and  no 
promise  of  emolument  or  promotion  on  the 
other,  could  alter  the  serenity  of  his  counte- 
nance, or  shake  the  firmness  of  his  soul.  By 
these  virtues,  which  endeared  him  to  his 
friends  and  commanded  the  respect  even  of 
his  enemies,  he,  sir,  has  acquired  a  name 
which,  while  you  and  such  as  you  are  mould- 
ering in  oblivion,  will  flourish  in  every  age, 
and  in  every  country  in  the  world. 


83 


SKETCHES  OF  CROMWELL  AND  FAIRFAX. 

[From  "The  Second  Defence  of  the  People  of 
England."] 

OLIVER  CROMWELL  was  sprung  from  a  line 
of  illustrious  ancestors,  who  were  distin- 
guished for  the  civil  functions  which  they  sus- 
tained under  the  monarchy,  and  still  more  for 
the  part  which  they  took  in  restoring  and  es- 
tablishing true  religion  in  this  country.  In 
the  vigor  and  maturity  of  his  life,  which  he 
passed  in  retirement,  he  was  conspicuous  for 
nothing  more  than  for  the  strictness  of  his 
religious  habits,  and  the  innocence  of  his  life; 
and  he  had  tacitly  cherished  in  his  breast 
that  flame  of  piety  which  was  afterwards  to 
stand  him  in  so  much  stead  on  the  greatest 
occasions,  and  in  the  most  critical  exigencies. 
In  the  last  parliament  which  was  called  by 
the  king,  he  was  elected  to  represent  his  native 
town,  when  he  soon  became  distinguished  by 
the  justness  of  his  opinions,  and  the  vigor 
and  decision  of  his  councils.  When  the  sword 
was  drawn,  he  offered  his  services,  and  was 
appointed  to  a  troop  of  horse,  whose  num- 
bers were  soon  increased  by  the  pious  and 
the  good,  who  flocked  from  all  quarters  to 
his  standard ;  and  in  a  short  time  he  almost 
8-i 


Sketches  of  Cromwell  and  Fairfax 

surpassed  the  greatest  generals  in  the  magni- 
tude and  the  rapidity  of  his  achievements. 
Nor  is  this  surprising;  for  he  was  a  soldier 
disciplined  to  perfection  in  the  knowledge  of 
himself.  He  had  either  extinguished,  or  by 
habit  had  learned  to  subdue,  the  whole  host 
of  vain  hopes,  fears,  and  passions,  which 
infest  the  soul.  He  first  acquired  the  govern- 
ment of  himself,  and  over  himself -acquired 
the  most  signal  victories ;  so  that  on  the  first 
day  he  took  the  field  against  the  external 
enemy,  he  was  a  veteran  in  arms,  consum- 
mately practised  in  the  toils  and  exigencies 
of  war.  It  is  not  possible  for  me  in  the  nar- 
row limits  in  which  I  circumscribe  myself  on 
this  occasion,  to  enumerate  the  many  towns 
•which  he  has  taken,  the  many  battles  which 
he  has  won.  The  whole  surface  of  the  Brit- 
ish empire  has  been  the  scene  of  his  exploits, 
and  the  theatre  of  his  triumphs;  which  alone 
\vould  furnish  ample  materials  for  a  history, 
and  want  a  copiousness  of  narration  not 
inferior  to  the  magnitude  and  diversity  of  the 
transactions.  This  alone  seems  to  be  a 
sufficient  proof  of  his  extraordinary  and 
almost  supernatural  virtue,  that  by  the 
vigor  of  his  genius,  or  the  excellence  of  his 
discipline,  adapted,  not  more  to  the  necessi- 
ties of  war  than  to  the  precepts  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  good  and  the  brave  were  from 
all  quarters  attracted  to  his  camp,  not  only 
as  to  the  best  school  of  military  talents,  but 
85 


Milton 

of  piety  and  virtue;  and  that  during  the 
whole  war,  and  the  occasional  intervals  of 
peace,  amid  so  many  vicissitudes  of  faction 
and  of  events,  he  retained  and  still  retains 
the  obedience  of  his  troops,  not  by  largesses 
or  indulgence,  but  by  his  sole  authority  and 
the  regularity  of  his  pay.  In  this  instance 
his  fame  may  rival  that  of  C}'rus,  of  Epa- 
minondas,  or  any  of  the  great  generals  of 
antiquity.  Hence  he  collected  an  army  as 
numerous  and  as  well  equipped  as  any  one 
ever  did  in  so  short  a  time;  which  was 
uniformly  obedient  to  his  orders,  and  clear  to 
the  affections  of  the  citizens;  which  was 
formidable  to  the  enemy  in  the  field,  but 
never  cruel  to  those  who  laid  down  their 
arms;  which  committed  no  lawless  ravages 
on  the  persons  or  the  property  of  the  inhabi- 
tants; who,  when  they  compared  their  con- 
duct with  the  turbulence,  the  intemperance, 
the  impiety,  and  the  debauchery  of  the  royal- 
ists, were  wont  to  salute  them  as  friends, 
and  to  consider  them  as  guests.  They  were 
a  stay  to  the  good,  a  terror  to  the  evil,  and 
the  warmest  advocates  for  every  exertion 
of  piety  and  virtue. 

Nor  would  it  be  right  to  pass  over  the 
name  of  Fairfax,  who  united  the  utmost 
fortitude  with  the  utmost  courage;  and 
the  spotless  innocence  of  whose  life  seemed 
to  point  him  out  as  the  peculiar  favorite 
of  Heaven.  Justly,  indeed,  may  you  be  ex- 
86 


Sketches  of  Cromwell  and  Fairfax 

cited  to  receive  this  wreath  of  praise;  though 
you  have  retired  as  much  as  possible  from 
the  world,  and  seek  those  shades  of  pri- 
vacy which  were  the  delight  of  Scipio.  Nor 
was  it  only  the  enemy  whom  you  sub- 
dued, but  you  have  triumphed  over  that 
flame  of  ambition  and  that  lust  of  glory 
\vhich  are  wont  to  make  the  best  and  the 
greatest  of  men  their  slaves.  The  purity  of 
your  virtues  and  the  splendor  of  your  ac- 
tions consecrate  those  sweets  of  ease  which 
you  enjoy,  and  which  constitute  the  wished- 
for  haven  of  the  toils  of  man.  Such  was  the 
ease  which,  when  the  heroes  of  antiquity 
possessed,  after  a  life  of  exertion  and  glory 
not  greater  than  yours,  the  poets,  in  de- 
spair of  finding  ideas  or  expressions  better 
suited  to  the  subject,  feigned  that  they  were 
received  into  heaven,  and  invited  to  recline 
at  the  tables  of  the  gods.  But  whether  it 
were  your  health,  which  I  principally  be- 
lieve, or  any  other  motive  which  caused  you 
to  retire,  of  this  I  am  convinced,  that  noth- 
ing could  have  induced  you  to  relinquish  the 
service  of  your  country,  if  you  had  not 
•  known  that  in  your  successor  liberty  would 
meet  with  a  protector,  and  England  with  a 
stay  to  its  safet}r,  and  a  pillar  to  its  glory. 


87 


LETTERS  OF  STATE  CONCERNING  THE 
MASSACRE  IN  PIEDMONT 

[Milton  had  accepted  in  1649  the  post  of  Latin 
Secretary  to  the  Council  of  State.  His  duties 
were  to  prepare  despatches  for  the  Committee  for 
Foreign  Affairs,  and  to  translate  despatches  re- 
ceived from  the  Continent.  This  task  was  not  an 
engrossing  one,  and  Milton  made  use  of  his  leisure 
to  write  the  "Eikonoklastes"  (a  reply  to  the 
royalist  "Eikon  Basilike"),  the  First  and  Second 
"Defence  of  the  People  of  England,"  and  other 
pamphlets.  In  April,  1655,  three  years  after  his 
blindness  had  become  total,  Milton,  in  common 
with  his  Protestant  countrymen,  was  shocked  by 
the  massacre  of  Vaudois  peasants  by  orders  of 
their  sovereign,  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  Milton's  per- 
sonal feelings  were  expressed  in  one  of  the  best 
known  of  his  sonnets,  "Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy 
slaughtered  saints."  But  it  was  also  his  duty,  as 
Latin  Secretary,  to  write  the  remonstrances  which 
Cromwell  despatched  to  various  European  pow- 
ers. The  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy — marked  by 
notable  diplomatic  restraint — is  given  here,  as 
well  as  the  indignant  communications  to  such 
Protestant  powers  as  Sweden,  the  United  Prov- 
inces, and  Switzerland.  Through  the  intervention 
of  Cardinal  Mazarin,  to  whom  Milton  likewise 
sent  a  letter,  the  Vaudois  Protestants  received 
some  temporary  protection.  The  fact  that  Ad- 
miral Blake's  fleet  was  then  in  the  Mediterranean 
doubtless  assisted  the  Duke  of  Savoy  to  see  the 
force  of  England's  protest.] 
.88 


State  Letters  on  Piedmont  Massacre 

OLIVER,  the  Protector,  &c.,  to  the  most  Se- 
rene Prince,  IMMANUEL  Duke  of  SAVOY, 
Prince  of  Piedmont,  Greeting. 

Most  Serene  Prince, 

LETTERS  have  been  sent  us  from  Geneva,  as 
also  from  the  Dauphinate,  and  many  other 
places  bordering  upon  your  territories, 
wherein  we  are  given  to  understand,  that 
such  of  your  royal  highness's  subjects  as 
profess  the  reformed  religion,  are  commanded 
by  your  edict,  and  by  your  authority,  within 
three  da\rs  after  the  promulgation  of  your 
edict,  to  depart  their  native  seats  and  habi- 
tations, upon  pain  of  capital  punishment, 
and  forfeiture  of  all  their  fortunes  and  es- 
tates, unless  they  will  give  security  to  relin- 
quish their  religion  within  twenty  days,  and 
embrace  the  Roman  Catholic  faith.  And  that 
when  they  applied  themselves  to  your  royal 
highness  in  a  most  suppliant  manner,  im- 
ploring a  revocation  of  the  said  edict,  and 
that,  being  received  into  pristine  favor, 
they  might  be  restored  to  the  liberty  granted 
them  by  your  predecessors,  a  part  of  your 
army  fell  upon  them,  most  cruelly  slew 
several,  put  others  in  chains,  and  compelled 
the  rest  to  fly  into  desert  places,  and  to  the 
mountains  covered  with  snow,  where  some 
hundreds  of  families  are  reduced  to  such  dis- 
tress, that  it  is  greatly  to  be  feared,  they 
will  in  a  short  time  all  miserably  perish 
89 


Milton 

through  cold  and  hunger.  These  things, 
when  they  were  related  to  us,  we  could  not 
choose  but  be  touched  with  extreme  grief 
and  compassion  for  the  sufferings  and  calami- 
ties of  this  afflicted  people.  Now  in  regard 
we  must  acknowledge  ourselves  linked  to- 
gether not  only  by  the  same  tie  of  humanity, 
but  by  joint  communion  of  the  same  religion, 
we  thought  it  impossible  for  us  to  satisfy 
our  duty  to  God,  to  brotherly  charity,  or 
our  profession  of  the  same  religion,  if  we 
should  only  be  affected  with  a  bare  sorrow 
for  the  misery  and  calamity  of  our  brethren, 
and  not  contribute  all  our  endeavors  to 
relieve  and  succor  them  in  their  unexpected 
adversity,  as  much  as  in  us  lies.  Therefore 
in  a  greater  measure  we  most  earnestly  be- 
seech and  conjure  your  royal  highness,  that 
you  would  call  back  to  your  thoughts  the 
moderation  of  your  most  serene  predecessors, 
and  the  liberty  by  them  granted  and  con- 
firmed from  time  to  time  to  their  subjects  the 
Vaudois.  In  granting  and  confirming  which, 
as  they  did  that  which  without  all  question 
was  most  grateful  to  God,  who  has  been 
pleased  to  reserve  the  jurisdiction  and  power 
over  the  conscience  to  himself  alone,  so  there 
is  no  doubt,  but  that  they  had  a  due  consid- 
eration of  their  subjects  also,  whom  they 
found  stout  and  most  faithful  in  war,  and 
always  obedient  in  peace.  And  as  your 
royal  serenity  in  other  things  most  laudably 
90  ' 


State  Letters  on  Piedmont  Massacre 

follows  the  footsteps  of  your  immortal  an- 
cestors, so  we  again  and  again  beseech  your 
royal  highness  not  to  swerve  from  the  path 
wherein  they  trod  in  this  particular;  but 
that  you  would  vouchsafe  to  abrogate  both 
this  edict,  and  whatsoever  else  may  be  de- 
creed to  the  disturbance  of  your  subjects 
upon  the  account  of  the  reformed  religion; 
that  you  would  ratify  to  them  their  conceded 
privileges  and  pristine  liberty,  and  command 
their  losses  to  be  repaired,  and  that  an  end 
be  put  to  their  oppressions.  Which  if  your 
royal  highness  shall  be  pleased  to  see  per- 
formed, you  will  do  a  thing  most  acceptable 
to  God,  revive  and  comfort  the  miserable  in 
dire  calamity,  and  most  highly  oblige  all 
your  neighbors,  that  profess  the  reformed 
religion,  but  more  especially  ourselves,  who 
shall  be  bound  to  look  upon  your  clemency 
and  benignity  toward  your  subjects  as  the 
fruit  of  our  earnest  solicitation.  Which  will 
both  engage  us  to  a  reciprocal  return  to 
all  good  offices,  and  lay  the  solid  foun- 
dations not  only  of  establishing,  but  in- 
creasing, alliance  and  friendship  between 
this  republic  and  your  dominions.  Nor 
do  we  less  promise  this  to  ourselves  from 
your  justice  and  moderation ;  to  which  we 
beseech  Almighty  God  to  incline  your  mind 
and  thoughts.  And  so  we  cordially  im- 
plore just  Heaven  to  bestow  upon  your 
highness  and  your  people  the  blessings  of 
91 


Milton 

peace  and  truth,  and  prosperous  success  in 
all  your  affairs. 

Whitehall,  May  —,  1655. 

OLIVER,  Protector,  to  the  most  Serene  Prince, 
CHARLES  GUSTAVUS  ADOLPHUS,  King-  of  the 
SWEDES,  Greeting: 

WE  make  no  question  but  that  the  fame 
of  that  most  rigid  edict  has  reached  your 
dominions,  whereby  the  Duke  of  Savoy  has 
totally  ruined  his  Protestant  subjects  inhab- 
iting the  Alpine  valleys,  and  commanded 
them  to  be  exterminated  from  their  native 
seats  and  habitations,  unless  they  will  give 
security  to  renounce  their  religion  received 
from  their  forefathers,  in  exchange  for  the 
Roman  Catholic  superstition,  and  that  within 
twenty  days  at  furthest :  so  that  many  being 
killed,  the  rest  stripped  to  their  skins,  and 
exposed  to  most  certain  destruction,  are  now 
forced  to  wander  over  desert  mountains,  and 
through  perpetual  winter,  together  with 
their  wives  and  children,  half  dead  with  cold 
and  hunger :  and  that  your  majesty  has  laid 
it  to  heart,  with  a  pious  sorrow  and  com- 
passionate consideration,  we  as  little  doubt. 
For  that  the  Protestant  name  and  cause, 
although  they  differ  among  themselves  in 
some  things  of  little  consequence,  is  never- 
theless the  same  in  general,  and  united  in  one 
common  interest,  the  hatred  of  our  adver- 
saries, alike  incensed  against  Protestants, 
92 


State  Letters  on  Piedmont  Massacre 

very  easily  demonstrates.  Now  there  is  no- 
body can  be  ignorant  that  the  kings  of  the 
Swedes  have  always  joined  with  the  re- 
formed, earning  their  victorious  arms  into 
Germany  in  defence  of  the  Protestants  with- 
out distinction.  Therefore  we  make  it  our 
chief  request,  and  that  in  a  more  especial 
manner  to  your  majesty,  that  you  "would 
solicit  the  Duke  of  Savoy  by  letters ;  and,  by 
interposing  your  intermediating  authority, 
endeavour  to  avert  the  horrid  cruelty  of  this 
edict,  if  possible,  from  people  no  less  innocent 
than  religious.  For  we  think  it  superfluous 
to  admonish  \rour  majesty  whither  these 
rigorous  beginnings  tend,  and  what  they 
threaten  to  all  the  Protestants  in  general. 
But  if  he  rather  choose  to  listen  to  his  anger, 
than  to  our  joint  entreaties  and  interces- 
sions; if  there  be  any  tie,  any  charity  or 
communion  of  religion  to  be  believed  and 
•worshipped,  upon  consultations  duly  first 
communicated  to  your  majesty,  and  the  chief 
of  the  Protestant  princes,  some  other  course 
is  to  be  speedily  taken,  that  such  a  numer- 
ous multitude  of  our  innocent  brethren  may 
not  miserably  perish  for  \vant  of  succor  and 
assistance.  Which,  in  regard  we  make  no 
question  but  that  it  is  your  majesty's  opin- 
ion and  determination,  there  can  be  nothing 
in  our  opinion  more  prudently  resolved,  than 
to  join  our  reputation,  authority,  counsels, 
forces,  and  whatever  else  is  needful,  with  all 
93 


Milton 

the  speed  that  may  be,  in  pursuance  of  so 
pious  a  design.  In  the  meantime,  we  be- 
seech Almighty  God  to  bless  your  majesty. 

OLIVER,  Protector,  &c.,  to  the  High  and 
Mighty  Lords,  the  States  of  the  UNITED 
PROVINCES. 

WE  make  no  question  but  that  you  have 
already  been  informed  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy's 
edict,  set  forth  against  his  subjects  inhabit- 
ing the  valleys  at  the  feet  of  the  Alps,  ancient 
professors  of  the  orthodox  faith;  by  which 
edict  they  are  commanded  to  abandon  their 
native  habitations,  stripped  of  all  their  for- 
tunes, unless  within  twenty  days  they  em- 
brace the  Roman  faith;  and  with  what 
cruelty  the  authority  of  this  edict  has  raged 
against  a  needy  and  harmless  people,  many 
being  slain  by  the  soldiers,  the  rest  plundered 
and  driven  from  their  houses,  together  with 
their  wives  and  children,  to  combat  cold  and 
hunger  among  desert  mountains,  and  per- 
petual snow.  These  things  with  what  com- 
motion of  mind  you  heard  related,  what  a 
fellow-feeling  of  the  calamities  of  brethren 
pierced  your  breasts,  we  readily  conjectured 
from  the  depth  of  our  own  sorrow,  which 
certainly  is  most  heavy  and  afflictive.  For 
being  engaged  together  by  the  same  tie  of 
religion,  no  wonder  we  should  be  so  deeply 
moved  with  the  same  affections  upon  the 
dreadful  and  undeserved  sufferings  of  our 
94 


State  Letters  on  Piedmont  Massacre 

brethren.  Besides,  that  your  conspicuous 
piety  and  charity  toward  the  orthodox, 
wherever  overborne  and  oppressed,  has  been 
frequently  experienced  in  the  most  urging 
straits  and  calamities  of  the  churches.  For 
my  own  part,  unless  my  thoughts  deceive 
me,  there  is  nothing  wherein  I  should  desire 
more  willingly  to  be  overcome,  than  in  good- 
will and  charity  toward  brethren  of  the  same 
religion,  afflicted  and  wronged  in  their  quiet 
enjoyments;  as  being  one  that  would  be  ac- 
counted always  ready  to  prefer  the  peace  and 
safety  of  the  churches  before  my  particular 
interests.  So  far,  therefore,  as  hitherto  lay 
in  our  power,  we  have  written  to  the  Duke 
of  Savoy,  even  almost  to  supplication,  be- 
seeching him  that  he  would  admit  into  his 
breast  more  placid  thoughts  and  kinder 
effects  of  his  favor  toward  his  most  inno- 
cent subjects  and  suppliants ;  that  he  would 
restore  the  miserable  to  their  habitations 
and  estates,  and  grant  them  their  pristine 
freedom  in  the  exercise  of  their  religion. 
Moreover,  we  wrote  to  the  chiefest  princes 
and  magistrates  of  the  Protestants,  whom 
we  thought  most  nearly  concerned  in  these 
matters,  that  they  would  lend  us  their  assist- 
ance to  entreat  and  pacify  the  Duke  of  Savoy 
in  their  behalf.  And  we  make  no  doubt  now 
but  you  have  done  the  same,  and  perhaps 
much  more.  For  this  so  dangerous  a  prece- 
dent, and  lately  renewed  severity  of  utmost 

95 


Milton 

cruelty  toward  the  reformed,  if  the  authors 
of  it  meet  with  prosperous  success,  to  what 
apparent  dangers  it  reduces  our  religion,  we 
need  not  admonish  your  prudence.  On  the 
other  side,  if  the  duke  shall  once  but  permit 
himself  to  be  atoned  and  won  bv  our  united 
applications,  not  only  our  afflicted  brethren, 
but  we  ourselves  shall  reap  the  noble  and 
abounding  harvest  and  reward  of  this  labo- 
rious undertaking.  But  if  he  still  persist  in 
the  same  obstinate  resolutions  of  reducing 
to  utmost  extremity  those  people,  (among 
whom  our  religion  was  either  disseminated 
by  the  first  doctors  of  the  gospel,  and  pre- 
served from  the  defilement  of  superstition,  or 
else  restored  to  its  pristine  sincerity  long 
before  other  nations  obtained  that  felicity, ) 
and  determines  their  utter  extirpation  and 
destruction ;  we  are  ready  to  take  such  other 
course  and  counsels  with  yourselves,  in  com- 
mon with  the  rest  of  our  reformed  friends 
and  confederates,  as  may  be  most  necessary 
for  the  preservation  of  just  and  good  men, 
upon  the  brink  of  inevitable  ruin ;  and  to 
make  the  duke  himself  sensible  that  we  can 
no  longer  neglect  the  heavy  oppressions  and 
calamities  of  our  orthodox  brethren.  Fare- 
well. 

To  the  Evangelic  Cities  of  SWITZERLAND. 

WE  make  no  question  but  the  late  calamity 
of  the   Piedmontois,  professing  our  religion, 
96 


State  Letters  on  Piedmont  Massacre 

reached  your  ears  before  the  unwelcome  news 
of  it  arrived  with  us :  who  being  a  people 
under  the  protection  and  jurisdiction  of  the 
Duke  of  Savoy,  and  by  a  severe  edict  of  their 
prince  commanded  to  depart  their  native 
habitations,  unless  within  three  days  they 
gave  security  to  embrace  the  Roman  religion, 
soon  after  were  assailed  by  armed  violence, 
that  turned  their  dwellings  into  slaughter- 
houses, while  others,  without  number,  were 
terrified  into  banishment,  where  now  naked 
and  afflicted,  without  house  or  home,  or  any 
covering  from  the  weather,  and  ready  to 
perish  through  hunger  and  cold,  they  misera- 
bly wander  through  desert  mountains,  and 
depths  of  snow,  together  with  their  wives 
and  children.  And  far  less  reason  have  we  to 
doubt  but  that  so  soon  as  they  came  to 
3rour  knowledge,  you  laid  these  things  to 
heart,  with  a  compassion  no  less  sensible 
of  their  multiplied  miseries  than  ourselves ; 
the  more  deeply  imprinted  perhaps  in  your 
minds,  as  being  next  neighbors  to  the  suf- 
ferers. Besides  that,  we  have  abundant 
proof  of  your  singular  love  and  affection  for 
the  orthodox  faith,  of  your  constancy  in 
retaining  it,  and  your  fortitude  in  defending 
it.  Seeing  then,  by  the  most  strict  commun- 
ion of  religion,  that  you,  together  with  our- 
selves, are  all  brethren  alike,  or  rather  one 
body  with  those  unfortunate  people,  of  which 
no  member  can  be  afflicted  without  the  feel- 
7  97 


Milton 

ing,  without  pain,  without  the  detriment 
and  hazard  of  the  rest ;  we  thought  it  con- 
venient to  write  to  your  lordships  concerning 
this  matter,  and  let  you  understand  how  we 
believe  it  to  be  the  general  interest  of  us  all, 
as  much  as  in  us  lies,  with  our  common  aid 
and  succor  to  relieve  our  exterminated  and 
indigent  brethren ;  and  not  only  to  take  care 
for  removing  their  miseries  and  afflictions, 
but  also  to  provide  that  the  mischief  spread 
no  further,  nor  encroach  upon  ourselves  in 
general,  encouraged  by  example  and  success. 
We  have  \vritten  letters  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy > 
•wherein  we  have  most  earnestly  besought 
him,  out  of  his  wonted  clemency,  to  deal 
more  gently  and  mildly  with  his  most  faith- 
ful subjects,  and  to  restore  them,  almost 
ruined  as  they  are,  to  their  goods  and  habi- 
tations. And  we  are  in  hopes  that,  by  these 
our  entreaties,  or  rather  by  the  united  inter- 
cessions of  us  all,  the  most  serene  prince  at 
length  will  be  atoned,  and  grant  what  we 
have  requested  with  so  much  importunity. 
But  if  his  mind  be  obstinately  bent  to  other 
determinations,  we  are  ready  to  communi- 
cate our  consultations  with  yours,  by  what 
most  prevalent  means  to  relieve  and  re-es- 
tablish most  innocent  men,  and  our  most 
dearly  beloved  brethren  in  Christ,  tormented 
and  overlaid  with  so  many  wrongs  and  op- 
pressions, and  preserve  them  from  inevitable 
and  undeserved  ruin.  Of  whose  welfare  and 
98 


State  Letters  on  Piedmont  Massacre 

safety,  as  I  am  assured,  that  you,  according 
to  your  wonted  piety,  are  most  cordially 
tender ;  so,  for  our  own  parts,  we  cannot  but 
in  our  opinion  prefer  their  preservation  be- 
fore our  most  important  interests,  even  the 
safeguard  of  our  own  life.  Farewell. 

0.  P. 
Westminster,  May  19th,  1655. 

Superscribed,  To  the  most  Illustrious  and 
Potent  Lords,  the  Consuls  and  Senators 
of  the  Protestant  Cantons  and  Confed- 
erate Cities  of  Switzerland,  Greeting. 


99 


Personal   Letters 


101 


TO  LEONARD  PHILARAS,  THE  ATHENIAN. 

[This  letter  gives  details  concerning  Milton's 
loss  of  eyesight,  but  is  chiefly  notable  for  its 
serene  courage.] 

I  HAVE  always  been  devotedly  attached  to 
the  literature  of  Greece,  and  particularly  to 
that  of  your  Athens ;  and  have  never  ceased 
to  cherish  the  persuasion  that  that  city 
would  one  day  make  me  ample  recompense 
for  the  warmth  of  my  regard.  The  ancient 
genius  of  your  renowned  country  has  fa- 
vored the  completion  of  my  prophecy  in 
presenting  me  with  your  friendship  and  es- 
teem. Though  I  was  known  to  you  only  by 
my  writings,  and  we  were  removed  to  such 
distance  from  each  other,  you  most  courte- 
ously addressed  me  by  letter ;  and  \vhen  you 
unexpectedly  came  to  London,  and  saw  me 
who  could  no  longer  see,  my  affliction,  which 
causes  none  to  regard  me  \vith  greater  ad- 
miration, and  perhaps  many  even  with  feel- 
ings of  contempt,  excited  your  tenderest 
sympathy  and  concern.  You  would  not  suf- 
fer me  to  abandon  the  hope  of  recovering 
my  sight ;  and  informed  me  that  you  had  an 
intimate  friend  at  Paris,  Doctor  Thevenot, 
103 


Milton 

who  was  particular!}'  celebrated  in  disorders 
of  the  eyes,  whom  you  would  consult  about 
mine,  if  I  would  enable  you  to  lay  before  him 
the  causes  and  symptoms  of  the  complaint. 
I  will  do  what  you  desire,  lest  I  should  seem 
to  reject  that  aid  which  perhaps  may  be 
offered  me  by  Heaven.  It  is  now,  I  think, 
about  ten  years  since  I  perceived  my  vision 
to  grow  weak  and  dull ;  and  at  the  same  time 
I  was  troubled  with  pain  in  my  kidne\-s  and 
bowels,  accompanied  with  flatulency.  In  the 
morning,  if  I  began  to  read,  as  was  my 
custom,  my  eyes  instantly  ached  intensely, 
but  were  refreshed  after  a  little  corporeal 
exercise.  The  candle  which  I  looked  at, 
seemed  as  it  were  encircled  with  a  rainbow. 
Not  long  after  the  sight  in  the  left  part  of 
the  left  eye  (which  I  lost  some  years  before 
the  other)  became  quite  obscured ;  and  pre- 
vented me  from  discerning  any  object  on  that 
side.  The  sight  in  my  other  eye  has  now 
been  gradually  and  sensibly  vanishing  away 
for  about  three  years;  some  months  before  it 
had  entirely  perished,  though  I  stood  mo- 
tionless, everything  which  I  looked  at  seemed 
in  motion  to  and  fro.  A  stiff  cloudy  vapor 
seemed  to  have  settled  on  my  forehead  and 
temples,  which  usually  occasions  a  sort  of 
somnolent  pressure  upon  my  eyes,  and  par- 
ticularly from  dinner  till  the  evening.  So 
that  I  often  recollect  what  is  said  of  the 
poet  Phineas  in  the  Argonautics: — 
104 


To   Leonard  Philaras,  the  Athenian 

"A  stupor  deep  his  cloudy  temples  bound, 
And    when   he    walk'd   he   seem'd   as    whirling 

round, 
Or  in  a  feeble  trance  he  speechless  lay." 

I  ought  not  to  omit  that  while  I  had  any 
sight  left,  as  soon  as  I  lay  down  on  my  bed 
and  turned  on  either  side,  a  flood  of  light 
used  to  gush  from  my  closed  eyelids.  Then, 
as  my  sight  became  daily  more  impaired,  the 
colors  became  more  faint,  and  were  emitted 
with  a  certain  inward  crackling  sound;  but 
at  present,  every  species  of  illumination  be- 
ing, as  it  were,  extinguished,  there  is  diffused 
around  me  nothing  but  darkness,  or  dark- 
ness mingled  and  streaked  with  an  ashy 
brown.  Yet  the  darkness  in  which  I  am  per- 
petually immersed  seems  always,  both  by 
night  and  day,  to  approach  nearer  to  white 
than  black;  and  when  the  eye  is  rolling  in 
its  socket,  it  admits  a  little  particle  of  light, 
as  through  a  chink.  And  though  your  physi- 
cian may  kindle  a  small  ray  of  hope,  yet  I 
make  up  my  mind  to  the  malady  as  quite 
incurable;  and  I  often  reflect,  that  as  the 
wise  man  admonishes,  days  of  darkness  are 
destined  to  each  of  us,  the  darkness  which  I 
experience,  less  oppressive  than  that  of  the 
tomb,  is,  owing  to  the  singular  goodness  of 
the  Deity,  passed  amid  the  pursuits  of  litera- 
ture and  the  cheering  salutations  of  friend- 
ship. But  if,  as  is  written,  "Man  shall  not 
live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that 
105 


Milton 

proceedeth  from  the  mouth  of  God,"  why 
may  not  any  one  acquiesce  in  the  privation 
of  his  sight,  when  God  has  so  amply  fur- 
nished his  mind  and  his  conscience  with 
eyes?  While  he  so  tenderly  provides  for  me, 
while  he  so  graciously  leads  me  by  the  hand 
and  conducts  me  on  the  way,  I  will,  since  it 
is  his  pleasure,  rather  rejoice  than  repine  at 
being  blind.  And,  my  dear  Philaras,  what- 
ever may  be  the  event,  I  wish  you  adieu 
with  no  less  courage  and  composure  than  if 
I  had  the  eyes  of  a  h-nx. 

Westminster,  September  28,  1654. 


106 


TO   PETER   HEINBACH. 

[This  is  the  latest  of  Milton's  personal  letters. 
It  was  written  in  the  year  of  the  Great  Plague, 
•when  the  poet  was  living  in  obscurity  near  Lon- 
don. He  had  already  completed  "Paradise  Lost," 
which  \vas  published  in  the  year  following.] 

IT  is  not  strange  as  you  \vrite  that  report 
should  have  induced  you  to  believe,  that  I 
had  perished  among  the  numbers  of  my 
countrymen  who  fell  in  a  year  so  fatally 
visited  by  the  ravages  of  the  plague.  If  that 
rumor  sprung,  as  it  seems,  out  of  solicitude 
for  my  safety,  I  consider  it  as  no  unpleasing 
indication  of  the  esteem  in  which  I  am  held 
among  you.  But  by  the  goodness  of  God, 
who  provided  for  me  a  place  of  refuge  in  the 
country,  I  yet  enjoy  both  life  and  health; 
which,  as  long  as  they  continue,  I  shall  be 
happy  to  employ  in  any  useful  undertaking. 
It  gives  me  pleasure  to  think  that,  after  so 
long  an  interval,  I  have  again  occurred  to 
your  remembrance;  though,  owing  to  the 
luxuriance  of  }rour  praise,  you  seem  almost 
to  lead  me  to  suspect  that  you  had  quite 
forgotten  one  in  whom  you  say  that  you 
admire  the  union  of  so  many  virtues ;  from 
such  an  union  I  might  dread  too  numerous 
a  progeny,  if  it  were  not  evident  that  the 
virtues  flourish  most  in  penury  and  distress. 
107 


Milton 

But  one  of  those  virtues  has  made  me  but 
an  ill  return  for  her  hospitable  reception  in 
my  breast;  for  what  you  term  policy,  and 
which  I  wish  that  you  had  rather  called 
patriotic  piety,  has,  if  I  may  so  say,  almost 
left  me,  who  was  charmed  with  so  sweet  a 
sound,  without  a  country.  The  other  virtues 
harmoniously  agree.  Our  country  is  wher- 
ever we  are  well  off.  I  will  conclude  after 
first  begging  you  if  there  be  any  errors  in  the 
diction  or  the  punctuation,  to  impute  it  to 
the  boy  who  wrote  this,  who  is  quite  igno- 
rant of  Latin,  and  to  whom  I  was,  with  no 
little  vexation,  obliged  to  dictate  not  the 
words,  but,  one  by  one,  the  letters  of  which 
they  were  composed.  I  rejoice  to  find  that 
your  virtues  and  talents,  of  which  I  saw  the 
fair  promise  in  your  youth,  have  raised  you 
to  so  honorable  a  situation  under  the 
prince;  and  I  \vish  you  every  good  which 
you  can  enjoy.  Adieu. 
London,  Aug.  15L&,  1666. 


108 


On  Education 


109 


ON  EDUCATION. 

i After  Milton's  return  from  Italy  in  1639,  he 
undertook  the  education  of  his  two  nephews, 
John  and  Edward  Phillips,  and  of  a  few  other 
pupils.  He  became  deeply  interested  in  the  the- 
ory of  teaching,  and  the  following  "Tract  on 
Education,"  addressed  in  1644  to  Samuel  Hart- 
lib,  a  Londoner  of  German  birth  who  had  a  pas- 
sion for  school  reform,  outlines  a  scheme  for  the 
instruction  of  youth.  Possibly  the  tract  is  no 
more  conclusive  than  other  famous  discussions 
of  educational  theory,  but  its  interest  is  undeni- 
able, and  its  definition  of  "a  complete  and  gen- 
erous education"  has  never  been  surpassed.] 

TO   MASTER   SAMUEL   HARTLIB. 

I  AM  long  since  persuaded,  Master  Hartlib, 
that  to  say  or  do  aught  worth  memory  and 
imitation,  no  purpose  or  respect  should 
sooner  move  us  than  simply  the  love  of  God, 
and  of  mankind.  Nevertheless  to  write  now 
the  reforming  of  education,  though  it  be  one 
of  the  greatest  and  noblest  designs  that  can 
be  thought  on,  and  for  the  want  whereof 
this  nation  perishes;  I  had  not  yet  at  this 
time  been  induced,  but  by  your  earnest  en- 
treaties and  serious  conjurements ;  as  having 
my  mind  for  the  present  half  diverted  in  the 
pursuance  of  some  other  assertions,  the 
knowledge  and  the  use  of  which  cannot  but 
111 


Milton 

be  a  great  furtherance  both  to  the  enlarge- 
ment of  truth,  and  honest  living  with  much 
more  peace.  Nor  should  the  laws  of  any 
private  friendship  have  prevailed  with  me 
to  divide  thus,  or  transpose  my  former 
thoughts,  but  that  I  see  those  aims,  those 
actions,  which  have  won  you  with  me  the 
esteem  of  a  person  sent  hither  by  some  good 
providence  from  a  far  country  to  be  the 
occasion  and  incitement  of  great  good  to 
this  island. 

And,  as  I  hear,  you  have  obtained  the 
same  repute  with  men  of  most  approved 
wisdom,  and  some  of  the  highest  authority 
among  us;  not  to  mention  the  learned  cor- 
respondence which  you  hold  in  foreign  parts, 
and  the  extraordinary  pains  and  diligence 
\vhich  you  have  used  in  this  matter,  both 
here  and  beyond  the  seas;  either  by  the 
definite  will  of  God  so  ruling,  or  the  peculiar 
sway  of  nature,  which  also  is  God's  working. 
Neither  can  I  think  that  so  reputed  and  so 
valued  as  you  are,  you  would,  to  the  forfeit 
of  your  own  discerning  ability,  impose  upon 
me  an  unfit  and  overponderous  argument; 
but  that  the  satisfaction  which  you  profess 
to  have  received,  from  those  incidental  dis- 
courses which  we  have  wandered  into,  hath 
pressed  and  almost  constrained  you  into  a 
persuasion,  that  what  you  require  from  me 
in  this  point,  I  neither  ought  nor  can  in  con- 
science defer  beyond  this  time,  both  of  so 
112 


On    Education 

much  need  at  once,  and  so  much  opportunity 
to  try  what  God  hath  determined. 

I  will  not  resist,  therefore,  whatever  it  is, 
either  of  divine  or  human  obligement,  that 
you  lay  upon  me;  but  will  forthwith  set 
down  in  writing,  as  you  request  me,  that 
voluntary  idea,  which  hath  long,  in  silence, 
presented  itself  to  me,  of  a  better  education, 
in  extent  and  comprehension  far  more  large, 
and  yet  of  time  far  shorter,  and  of  attain- 
ment far  more  certain,  than  hath  been  yet  in 
practice.  Brief  I  shall  endeavor  to  be;  for 
that  which  I  have  to  say,  assuredly  this 
nation  hath  extreme  need  should  be  done 
sooner  than  spoken.  To  tell  you,  therefore, 
what  I  have  benefited  herein  among  old  re- 
nowned authors,  I  shall  spare ;  and  to  search 
what  many  modern  Januas  and  Didactics, 
more  than  ever  I  shall  read,  have  projected, 
my  inclination  leads  me  not.  But  if  you  can 
accept  of  these  few  observations  which  have 
flowered  off,  and  are  as  it  were  the  burnish- 
ing of  many  studious  and  contemplative 
years,  altogether  spent  in  the  search  of  relig- 
ious and  civil  knowledge,  and  such  as  pleased 
you  so  well  in  the  relating,  I  here  give  you 
them  to  dispose  of. 

The  end  then  of  learning  is  to  repair  the 
ruins  of  our  first  parents  by  regaining  to 
know  God  aright,  and  out  of  that  knowl- 
edge to  love  him,  to  imitate  him,  to  be  like 
him,  as  we  may  the  nearest  by  possessing 
8  113 


Milton 

our  souls  of  true  virtue,  which  being  united 
to  the  heavenly  grace  of  faith,  makes  up  the 
highest  perfection.  But  because  our  under- 
standing cannot  in  this  body  found  itself 
but  on  sensible  things,  nor  arrive  so  clearly 
to  the  knowledge  of  God  and  things  invisible, 
as  by  orderly  conning  over  the  visible  and 
inferior  creature,  the  same  method  is  neces- 
sarily to  be  followed  in  all  discreet  teaching. 
And  seeing  every  nation  affords  not  experi- 
ence and  tradition  enough  for  all  kinds  of 
learning,  therefore  we  are  chiefly  taught  the 
languages  of  those  people  who  have  at  any 
time  been  most  industrious  after  wisdom ; 
so  that  language  is  but  the  instrument  con- 
veying to  us  things  useful  to  be  known. 
And  though  a  linguist  should  pride  himself 
to  have  all  the  tongues  that  Babel  cleft  the 
world  into,  yet  if  he  have  not  studied  the 
solid  things  in  them,  as  well  as  the  words 
and  lexicons,  he  were  nothing  so  much  to  be 
esteemed  a  learned  man,  as  any  yeoman  or 
tradesman  competently  wise  in  his  mother 
dialect  only. 

Hence  appear  the  many  mistakes  which 
have  made  learning  generally  so  unpleasing 
and  so  unsuccessful;  first,  we  do  amiss  to 
spend  seven  or  eight  years  merely  in  scraping 
together  so  much  miserable  Latin  and  Greek, 
as  might  be  learned  otherwise  easily  and  de- 
lightfully in  one  year.  And  that  which  casts 
our  proficiency  therein  so  much  behind,  is 
114 


On    Education 

our  time  lost  partly  in  too  oft  idle  vacancies 
given  both  to  schools  and  universities; 
partly  in  a  preposterous  exaction,  forcing 
the  empty  wits  of  children  to  compose 
themes,  verses,  and  orations,  which  are  the 
acts  of  ripest  judgment,  and  the  final  work 
of  a  head  filled  by  long  reading  and  observ- 
ing, with  elegant  maxims  and  copious  inven- 
tion. These  are  not  matters  to  be  wrung 
from  poor  striplings,  like  blood  out  of  the 
nose,  or  the  plucking  of  untimely  fruit.  Be- 
sides the  ill  habit  which  they  get  of  \vretched 
barbarizing  against  the  Latin  and  Greek 
idiom,  with  their  untutored  Anglicisms, 
odious  to  be  read,  yet  not  to  be  avoided 
without  a  well-continued  and  judicious  con- 
versing among  pure  authors  digested,  which 
they  scarce  taste.  Whereas,  if  after  some 
preparatory  grounds  of  speech  by  their  cer- 
tain forms  got  into  memory,  they  were  led  to 
the  praxis  thereof  in  some  chosen  short  book 
lessoned  thoroughly  to  them,  they  might 
then  forthwith  proceed  to  learn  the  sub- 
stance of  good  things,  and  arts  in  due  order, 
which  would  bring  the  whole  language 
quickh-  into  their  power.  This  I  take  to  be 
the  most  rational  and  most  profitable  way 
of  learning  languages,  and  whereby  we  may 
best  hope  to  give  account  to  God  of  our 
youth  spent  herein. 

And  for  the  usual  method  of  teaching  arts, 
I  deem  it  to  be  an  old  error  of  universities, 
115 


Milton 

not  yet  well  recovered  from  the  scholastic 
grossness  of  barbarous  ages,  that  instead  of 
beginning  with  arts  most  easy,  (and  those  be 
such  as  are  most  obvious  to  the  sense,)  they 
present  their  young  unmatriculated  novices, 
at  first  coming,  with  the  most  intellective 
abstractions  of  logic  and  metaphysics ;  so 
that  they  having  but  newly  left  those  gram- 
matic  flats  and  shallows,  where  they  stuck 
unreasonably  to  learn  a  few  words  with 
lamentable  construction,  and  now  on  the 
sudden  transported  under  another  climate, 
to  be  tossed  and  turmoiled  with  their  unbal- 
lasted wits  in  fathomless  and  unquiet  deeps 
of  controversy,  do  for  the  most  part  grow 
into  hatred  and  contempt  of  learning, 
mocked  and  deluded  all  this  while  with  rag- 
ged notions  and  babblements,  while  they 
expected  worthy  and  delightful  knowledge; 
till  poverty  or  youthful  years  call  them  im- 
portunately their  several  wa}-s,  and  hasten 
them,  with  the  sway  of  friends,  either  to  an 
ambitious  and  mercenary,  or  ignorantly 
zealous  divinity :  some  allured  to  the  trade  of 
law,  grounding  their  purposes  not  on  the 
prudent  and  heavenly  contemplation  of  jus- 
tice and  equity,  which  was  never  taught 
them,  but  on  the  promising  and  pleasing 
thoughts  of  litigious  terms,  fat  contentions, 
and  flowing  fees;  others  betake  them  to 
state  affairs,  with  souls  so  unprincipled  in 
virtue  and  true  generous  breeding,  that  flat- 
116 


On    Education 

tery  and  court-shifts  and  tyrannous  aphor- 
isms appear  to  them  the  highest  points  of 
wisdom ;  instilling  their  barren  hearts  with 
a  conscientious  slavery ;  if,  as  I  rather  think, 
it  be  not  feigned.  Others,  lastly,  of  a  more 
delicious  and  airy  spirit,  retire  themselves 
(knowing  no  better)  to  the  enjoyments  of 
ease  and  luxury,  living  out  their  days  in  feast 
and  jollity;  which  indeed  is  the  wisest  and 
safest  course  of  all  these,  unless  they  were 
with  more  integrity  undertaken.  And  these 
are  the  errors,  and  these  are  the  fruits  of 
misspending  our  prime  youth  at  the  schools 
and  universities  as  we  do,  either  in  learning 
mere  words,  or  such  things  chiefly  as  were 
better  unlearned. 

I  shall  detain  you  now  no  longer  in  the 
demonstration  of  what  we  should  not  do, 
but  straight  conduct  you  to  a  hillside,  where 
I  will  point  you  out  the  right  path  of  a 
virtuous  and  noble  education ;  laborious  in- 
deed at  the  first  ascent,  but  else  so  smooth, 
so  green,  so  full  of  goodly  prospect,  and 
melodious  sounds  on  every  side,  that  the 
harp  of  Orpheus  was  not  more  charming.  I 
doubt  not  but  ye  shall  have  more  ado  to 
drive  our  dullest  and  laziest  youth,  our 
stocks  and  stubs,  from  the  infinite  desire  of 
such  a  happy  nurture,  than  we  have  now  to 
hale  and  drag  our  choicest  and  hopefullest 
wits  to  that  asinine  feast  of  sowthistles  and 
brambles,  which  is  commonly  set  before  them 
117 


Milton 

as  all  the  food  and  entertainment  of  their 
tenderest  and  most  docible  age.  I  call  there- 
fore a  complete  and  generous  education,  that 
which  fits  a  man  to  perform  justly,  skilfully, 
and  magnanimously  all  the  offices,  both  pri- 
vate and  public,  of  peace  and  war.  And 
how  all  this  may  be  done  between  twelve 
and  one  and  twenty,  less  time  than  is  now 
bestowed  in  pure  trifling  at  grammar  and 
sophistry,  is  to  be  thus  ordered. 

First,  to  find  out  a  spacious  house  and 
ground  about  it  fit  for  an  academy,  and  big 
enough  to  lodge  a  hundred  and  fifty  persons, 
•whereof  twenty  or  thereabout  may  be  at- 
tendants, all  under  the  government  of  one, 
\vho  shall  be  thought  of  desert  sufficient,  and 
ability  either  to  do  all,  or  wisely  to  direct 
and  oversee  it  done.  This  place  should  be  at 
once  both  school  and  university,  not  needing 
a  remove  to  any  other  house  of  scholarship, 
except  it  be  some  peculiar  college  of  law,  or 
physic,  where  they  mean  to  be  practitioners; 
but  as  for  those  general  studies  which  take 
up  all  our  time  from  Lily  to  commencing,  as 
they  term  it,  master  of  art,  it  should  be  ab- 
solute. After  this  pattern,  as  many  edifices 
may  be  converted  to  this  use  as  shall  be 
needful  in  every  city  throughout  this  land, 
which  would  tend  much  to  the  increase  of 
learning  and  civility  every  where.  This  num- 
ber, less  or  more  thus  collected,  to  the  con- 
venience of  a  foot  company,  or  interchange- 
118 


On    Education 

ably  two  troops  of  cavalry,  should  divide 
their  day's  work  into  three  parts  as  it  lies 
orderly ;  their  studies,  their  exercise,  and  their 
diet. 

For  their  studies:  first,  they  should  begin 
with  the  chief  and  necessary  rules  of  some 
good  grammar,  either  that  now  used,  or  any 
better;  and  while  this  is  doing,  their  speech 
is  to  be  fashioned  to  a  distinct  and  clear 
pronunciation,  as  near  as  may  be  to  the 
Italian,  especially  in  the  vowels.  For  we 
Englishmen  being  far  northerly,  do  not  open 
our  mouths  in  the  cold  air  wide  enough  to 
grace  a  southern  tongue ;  but  are  observed  by 
all  other  nations  to  speak  exceeding  close  and 
inward,  so  that  to  smatter  Latin  with  an 
English  mouth,  is  as  ill  a  hearing  as  law 
French.  Next,  to  make  them  expert  in  the 
usefullest  points  of  grammar,  and  withal  to 
season  them  and  win  them  early  to  the  love 
of  virtue  and  true  labor,  ere  any  nattering 
seducement  or  vain  principle  seize  them 
wandering,  some  easy  and  delightful  book  of 
education  would  be  read  to  them,  whereof 
the  Greeks  have  store,  as  Cebes,  Plutarch, 
and  other  Socratic  discourses.  But  in  Latin 
we  have  none  of  classic  authority  extant, 
except  the  two  or  three  first  books  of  Quinc- 
tilian,  and  some  select  pieces  elsewhere. 

But  here  the  main  skill  and  groundwork 
will  be,  to  temper  them  such  lectures  and 
explanations,  upon  every  opportunity,  as 
119 


Milton 

may  lead  and  draw  them  in  willing  obe- 
dience, inflamed  with  the  study  of  learning 
and  the  admiration  of  virtue;  stirred  up  with 
high  hopes  of  living  to  be  brave  men,  and 
worthy  patriots,  dear  to  God,  and  famous 
to  all  ages.  That  they  may  despise  and 
scorn  all  their  childish  and  ill-taught  quali- 
ties, to  delight  in  manly  and  liberal  exercises, 
which  he  who  hath  the  art  and  proper  elo- 
quence to  catch  them  with,  what  with  mild 
and  effectual  persuasions,  and  what  with  the 
intimation  of  some  fear,  if  need  be,  but 
chiefly  by  his  own  example,  might  in  a  short 
space  gain  them  to  an  incredible  diligence 
and  courage,  infusing  into  their  young 
breasts  such  an  ingenuous  and  noble  ardor, 
as  would  not  fail  to  make  many  of  them 
renowned  and  matchless  men.  At  the  same 
time,  some  other  hour  of  the  day,  might  be 
taught  them  the  rules  of  arithmetic;  and 
soon  after  the  elements  of  geometr\r,  even 
playing,  as  the  old  manner  was.  After  even- 
ing repast,  till  bedtime,  their  thoughts  would 
be  best  taken  up  in  the  easy  grounds  of 
religion,  and  the  story  of  scripture. 

The  next  stejj  would  be  to  the  authors  of 
agriculture,  Cato,  Varro,  and  Columella,  for 
the  matter  is  most  easy;  and,  if  the  language 
be  difficult,  so  much  the  better,  it  is  not  a 
difficulty  above  their  years.  And  here  will 
be  an  occasion  of  inciting,  and  enabling  them 
hereafter  to  improve  the  tillage  of  theif 
120 


On    Education 

country,  to  recover  the  bad  soil,  and  to 
remedy  the  waste  that  is  made  of  good ;  for 
this  was  one  of  Hercules'  praises.  Ere  half 
these  authors  be  read  (which  will  soon  be 
with  plying  hard  and  daily)  they  cannot 
choose  but  be  masters  of  any  ordinary  prose. 
So  that  it  will  be  then  seasonable  for  them 
to  learn  in  any  modern  author  the  use  of  the 
globes,  and  all  the  maps,  first,  with  the  old 
names,  and  then  with  the  new;  or  they 
might  be  then  capable  to  read  any  compen- 
dious method  of  natural  philosophy. 

And  at  the  same  time  might  be  entering 
into  the  Greek  tongue,  after  the  same  man- 
ner as  was  before  prescribed  in  the  Latin ; 
whereby  the  difficulties  of  grammar  being 
soon  overcome,  all  the  historical  physiology 
of  Aristotle  and  Theophrastus  are  open  be- 
fore them,  and,  as  I  may  say,  under  contri- 
bution. The  like  access  will  be  to  Vitruvius, 
to  Seneca's  natural  questions,  to  Mela,  Cel- 
sus,  Pliny,  or  Solinus.  And  having  thus 
passed  the  principles  of  arithmetic,  geometry, 
astronomy,  'and  geography,  with  a  general 
compact  of  physics,  they  may  descend  in 
mathematics  to  the  instrumental  science  of 
trigonometry,  and  from  thence  to  fortifica- 
tion, architecture,  enginery,  or  navigation. 
And  in  natural  philosophy  they  may  proceed 
leisurely  from  the  histor\r  of  meteors,  min- 
erals, plants,  and  living  creatures,  as  far  as 
anatomy. 

121 


Milton 

Then  also  in  course  might  be  read  to 
them,  out  of  some  not  tedious  writer,  the 
institution  of  physic,  that  they  may  know 
the  tempers,  the  humours,  the  seasons,  and 
how  to  manage  a  crudity;  which  he  who 
can  wisely  and  timelv  do,  is  not  only  a  great 
physician  to  himself  and  to  his  friends,  but 
also  may,  at  some  time  or  other,  save  an 
army  by  this  frugal  and  expenseless  means 
only;  and  not  let  the  healthy  and  stout 
bodies  of  young  men  rot  away  under  him 
for  want  of  this  discipline ;  which  is  a  great 
pity,  and  no  less  a  shame  to  the  commander. 
To  set  forward  all  these  proceedings  in 
nature  and  mathematics,  what  hinders  but 
that  the}'  may  procure,  as  oft  as  shall  be 
needful,  the  helpful  experience  of  hunters, 
fowlers,  fishermen,  shepherds,  gardeners, 
apothecaries;  and  in  the  other  sciences, 
architects,  engineers,  mariners,  anatomists; 
who  doubtless  would  be  ready,  some  for  re- 
ward, and  some  to  favor  such  a  hopeful 
seminary.  And  this  will  give  them  such  a 
real  tincture  of  natural  knowledge,  as  they 
shall  never  forget,  but  daily  augment  with 
delight.  Then  also  those  poets  which  are 
now  counted  most  hard,  will  be  both  facile 
and  pleasant,  Orpheus,  Hesiod,  Theocritus, 
Aratus,  Xicander,  Oppian,  Dionysius;  and  in 
Latin,  Lucretius,  Manilius,  and  the  rural 
part  of  Virgil. 

By  this  time,  years  and  good  general  pre- 
122 


On    Education 

cepts,  will  have  furnished  them  more  dis- 
tinctly with  that  act  of  reason  which  in 
ethics  is  called  Proairesis;  that  they  may 
with  some  judgment  contemplate  upon 
moral  good  and  evil.  Then  will  be  required 
a  special  reinforcement  of  constant  and  sound 
indoctrinating,  to  set  them  right  and  firm, 
instructing  them  more  amply  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  virtue  and  the  hatred  of  vice ;  while 
their  young  and  pliant  affections  are  led 
through  all  the  moral  works  of  Plato,  Xeno- 
phon,  Cicero,  Plutarch,  Laertius,  and  those 
Locrian  remnants ;  but  still  to  be  reduced  in 
their  nightward  studies  wherewith  they  close 
the  day's  work,  under  the  determinate  sen- 
tence of  David  or  Solomon,  or  the  evan- 
gelists and  apostolic  scriptures.  Being  per- 
fect in  the  knowledge  of  personal  duty,  they 
may  then  begin  the  study  of  economics. 
And  either  now  or  before  this,  they  may  have 
easily  learned,  at  any  odd  hour,  the  Italian 
tongue.  And  soon  after,  but  with  wariness 
and  good  antidote,  it  would  be  wholesome 
enough  to  let  them  taste  some  choice  come- 
dies, Greek,  Latin,  or  Italian ;  those  tragedies 
also,  that  treat  of  household  matters,  as 
Trachiniae,  Alcestis,  and  the  like. 

The  next  removal  must  be  to  the  study  of 
politics;  to  know  the  beginning,  end,  and 
reasons  of  political  societies ;  that  they  may 
not,  in  a  dangerous  fit  of  the  commonwealth, 
be  such  poor,  shaken,  uncertain  reeds,  of 
123 


Milton 

such  a  tottering  conscience,  as  many  of  our 
great  counsellors  have  lately  shown  them- 
selves, but  steadfast  pillars  of  the  state. 
After  this,  they  are  to  dive  into  the  grounds 
of  law,  and  legal  justice ;  delivered  first  and 
with  best  warrant  by  Moses;  and  as  far  as 
human  prudence  can  be  trusted,  in  those  ex- 
tolled remains  of  Grecian  lawgivers,  Lycur- 
gus,  Solon,  Zaleucus,  Charondas,  and  thence 
to  all  the  Roman  edicts  and  tables  with  their 
Justinian;  and  so  down  to  the  Saxon  and 
common  laws  of  England,  and  the  statutes. 
Sundays  also  and  every  evening  may  be 
now  understandingly  spent  in  the  highest 
matters  of  theolog3r,  and  church  history, 
ancient  and  modern;  and  ere  this  time  the 
Hebrew  tongue  at  a  set  hour  might  have 
been  gained,  that  the  scriptures  may  be  now 
read  in  their  own  original ;  whereto  it  would 
be  no  impossibility  to  add  the  Chaldee  and 
the  Syrian  dialect.  When  all  these  employ- 
ments are  \vell  conquered,  then  will  the 
choice  histories,  heroic  poems,  and  Attic 
tragedies  of  stateliest  and  most  regal  argu- 
ment, with  all  the  famous  political  orations, 
offer  themselves;  which  if  the}-  were  not  only 
read,  but  some  of  them  got  by  memory,  and 
solemnh-  pronounced  with  right  accent  and 
grace,  as  might  be  taught,  would  endue 
them  even  with  the  spirit  and  vigor  of 
Demosthenes  or  Cicero,  Euripides  or  Soph- 
ocles. 

124 


On    Education 

And  now,  lastly,  will  be  the  time  to  read 
with  them  those  organic  arts,  which  enable 
men  to  discourse  and  write  perspicuously, 
elegantly,  and  according  to  the  fittest  style, 
of  lofty,  mean,  or  lowly.  Logic,  therefore, 
so  much  as  is  useful,  is  to  be  referred  to  this 
due  place  with  all  her  well-couched  heads 
and  topics,  until  it  be  time  to  open  her  con- 
tracted palm  into  a  graceful  and  ornate 
rhetoric,  taught  out  of  the  rule  of  Plato, 
Aristotle,  Phalereus,  Cicero,  Hermogenes, 
Longinus.  To  which  poetry  would  be  made 
subsequent,  or  indeed  rather  precedent,  as 
being  less  subtle  and  fine,  but  more  simple, 
sensuous,  and  passionate.  I  mean  not  here 
the  prosody  of  a  verse,  which  they  could  not 
but  have  hit  on  before  among  the  rudiments 
of  grammar;  but  that  sublime  art  which  in 
Aristotle's  poetics,  in  Horace,  and  the  Italian 
commentaries  of  Castelvetro,  Tasso,  Mazzoni, 
and  others,  teaches  what  the  laws  are  of  a 
true  epic  poem,  what  of  a  dramatic,  what  of 
a  lyric,  what  decorum  is,  which  is  the  grand 
masterpiece  to  observe.  This  would  make 
them  soon  perceive  what  despicable  creatures 
our  common  rhymers  and  play-writers  be; 
and  show  them  what  religious,  what  glori- 
ous and  magnificent  use  might  be  made  of 
poetry,  both  in  divine  and  human  things. 

From  hence,  and  not  till  now,  will  be  the 
right  season  of  forming  them  to  be  able 
writers  and  composers  in  every  excellent 
125 


.  Milton 

matter,  when  they  shall  be  thus  fraught  with 
an  universal  insight  into  things.  Or  whether 
they  be  to  speak  in  parliament  or  council, 
honor  and  attention  would  be  waiting  on 
their  lips.  There  \vould  then  also  appear 
in  pulpits  other  visage,  other  gestures,  and 
stuff  otherwise  wrought  than  what  we  now 
sit  under,  ofttimes  to  as  great  a  trial  of  our 
patience  as  any  other  that  they  preach  to  us. 
These  are  the  studies  wherein  our  noble  and 
our  gentle  youth  ought  to  bestow  their  time, 
in  a  disciplinary  way,  from  twelve  to  one 
and  twenty:  unless  they  rely  more  upon  their 
ancestors  dead,  than  upon  themselves  living. 
In  which  methodical  course  it  is  so  supposed 
they  must  proceed  by  the  steady  pace  of 
learning  onward,  as  at  convenient  times,  for 
memory's  sake,  to  retire  back  into  the  mid- 
dle ward,  and  sometimes  into  the  rear  of 
\vhat  they  have  been  taught,  until  they  have 
confirmed  and  solidly  united  the  whole  body 
of  their  perfected  knowledge,  like  the  em- 
battling of  a  Roman  legion.  Now  will  be 
worth  the  seeing,  what  exercises  and  recrea- 
tions may  best  agree,  and  become  these 
studies. 

The  course  of  stud}'  hitherto  briefly  de- 
scribed is,  what  I  can  guess  by  reading,  likest 
to  those  ancient  and  famous  schools  of  Py- 
thagoras, Plato,  Isocrates,  Aristotle,  and  such 
others,  out  of  which  were  bred  such  a  number 
of  renowned  philosophers,  orators,  historians, 
126 


On    Education 

poets,  and  princes  all  over  Greece,  Italy,  and 
Asia,  besides  the  flourishing  studies  of  Cyrene 
and  Alexandria.  But  herein  it  shall  exceed 
them,  and  supply  a  defect  as  great  as  that 
which  Plato  noted  in  the  commonwealth  of 
Sparta;  whereas  that  city  trained  up  their 
youth  most  for  war,  and  these  in  their  acade- 
mies and  Lycaeum  all  for  the  gown,  this 
institution  of  breeding  which  I  here  delineate 
shall  be  equally  good  both  for  peace  and 
war.  Therefore  about  an  hour  and  a  half 
ere  they  eat  at  noon  should  be  allowed  them 
for  exercise,  and  due  rest  afterwards ;  but  the 
time  for  this  may  be  enlarged  at  pleasure, 
according  as  their  rising  in  the  morning  shall 
be  early. 

The  exercise  which  I  commend  first,  is  the 
exact  use  of  their  weapon,  to  guard,  and  to 
strike  safely  with  edge  or  point;  this  will 
keep  them  healthy,  nimble,  strong,  and  well 
in  breath;  is  also  the  likeliest  means  to  make 
them  grow  large  and  tall,  and  to  inspire 
them  with  a  gallant  and  fearless  courage, 
which  being  tempered  with  seasonable  lec- 
tures and  precepts  to  them  of  true  fortitude 
and  patience,  will  turn  into  a  native  and 
heroic  valor,  and  make  them  hate  the  cow- 
ardice of  doing  wrong.  They  must  be  also 
practised  in  all  the  locks  and  gripes  of  wrest- 
ling, wherein  Englishmen  were  wont  to 
excel,  as  need  may  often  be  in  fight  to  tug, 
to  grapple,  and  to  close.  And  this  perhaps 
127 


Milton 

will  be  enough,  wherein  to  prove  and  heat 
their  single  strength. 

The  interim  of  unsweating  themselves  regu- 
larly, and  convenient  rest  before  meat,  may, 
both  with  profit  and  delight,  be  taken  up  in 
recreating  and  composing  their  travailed 
spirits  with  the  solemn  and  divine  harmonies 
of  music,  heard  or  learned ;  either  whilst  the 
skilful  organist  plies  his  grave  and  fancied 
descant  in  lofty  fugues,  or  the  whole  sym- 
phony with  artful  and  unimaginable  touches 
adorn  and  grace  the  well-studied  chords  of 
some  choice  composer ;  sometimes  the  lute  or 
soft  organ-stop  waiting  on  elegant  voices, 
either  to  religious,  martial,  or  civil  ditties; 
\vhich,  if  wise  men  and  prophets  be  not  ex- 
tremely out,  have  a  great  power  over  dispo- 
sitions and  manners,  to  smooth  and  make 
them  gentle  from  rustic  harshness  and  dis- 
tempered passions.  The  like  also  would  not 
be  inexpedient  after  meat,  to  assist  and 
cherish  nature  in  her  first  concoction,  and 
send  their  minds  back  to  study  in  good  tune 
and  satisfaction.  Where  having  followed  it 
close  under  vigilant  eyes,  till  about  two 
hours  before  supper,  they  are,  by  a  sudden 
alarm  or  watchword,  to  be  called  out  to 
their  military  motions,  under  sky  or  covert, 
according  to  the  season,  as  was  the  Roman 
wont;  first  on  foot,  then,  as  their  age  per- 
mits, on  horseback,  to  all  the  art  of  cavalry ; 
that  having  in  sport,  but  with  much  exact- 
128 


On    Education 

ness  and  daily  muster,  served  out  the  rudi- 
ments of  their  soldiership,  in  all  the  skill  of 
embattling,  marching,  encamping,  fortifying, 
besieging,  and  battering,  with  all  the  helps 
of  ancient  and  modern  stratagems,  tactics, 
and  warlike  maxims,  they  may  as  it  were 
out  of  a  long  war  come  forth  renowned  and 
perfect  commanders  in  the  service  of  their 
country.  They  would  not  then,  if  they  were 
trusted  with  fair  and  hopeful  armies,  suffer 
them,  for  -want  of  just  and  wise  discipline,  to 
shed  away  from  about  them  like  sick  feath- 
ers, though  they  be  never  so  oft  supplied; 
they  would  not  suffer  their  empty  and  un- 
recruitable  colonels  of  twenty  men  in  a  com- 
pany, to  quaff  out  or  convey  into  secret 
hoards,  the  wages  of  a  delusive  list,  and  a 
miserable  remnant ;  yet  in  the  meanwhile  to 
be  overmastered  with  a  score  or  two  of 
drunkards,  the  only  soldiery  left  about  them, 
or  else  to  comply  with  all  rapines  and  vio- 
lences. No,  certainly,  if  they  knew  aught  of 
that  knowledge  that  belongs  to  good  men  or 
good  governors,  they  would  not  suffer  these 
things. 

But  to  return  to  our  own  institute :  besides 
these  constant  exercises  at  home,  there  is  an- 
other opportunity  of  gaining  experience  to  IDC 
won  from  pleasure  itself  abroad;  in  those 
vernal  seasons  of  the  year  when  the  air  is 
calm  and  pleasant,  it  were  an  injury  and 
sullenness  against  nature,  not  to  go  out  and 
9  129 


Milton 

see  her  riches,  and  partake  in  her  rejoicing 
with  heaven  and  earth.  I  should  not  there- 
fore be  a  persuader  to  them  of  studying  much 
then,  after  two  or  three  years  that  they  have 
well  laid  their  grounds,  but  to  ride  out  in 
companies,  with  prudent  and  staid  guides, 
to  all  the  quarters  of  the  land :  learning  and 
observing  all  places  of  strength,  all  com- 
modities of  building  and  of  soil,  for  towns 
and  tillage,  harbors  and  ports  for  trade. 
Sometimes  taking  sea  as  far  as  to  our  navv, 
to  learn  there  also  what  they  can  in  the 
practical  knowledge  of  sailing  and  of  sea- 
fight. 

These  ways  would  try  all  their  peculiar 
gifts  of  nature ;  and  if  there  \vere  any  secret 
excellence  among  them  would  fetch  it  out, 
and  give  it  fair  opportunities  to  advance 
itself  by,  which  could  not  but  mightily  re- 
dound to  the  good  of  this  nation,  and  bring 
into  fashion  again  those  old  admired  virtues 
and  excellencies,  with  far  more  advantage 
now  in  this  purity  of  Christian  knowledge. 
Nor  shall  we  then  need  the  monsieurs  of 
Paris  to  take  our  hopeful  youth  into  their 
slight  and  prodigal  custodies,  and  send  them 
over,  back  again,  transformed  into  mimics, 
apes,  and  kickshaws.  But  if  they  desire  to 
see  other  countries  at  three  or  four  and 
twenty  years  of  age,  not  to  learn  principles, 
but  to  enlarge  experience,  and  make  wise 
observation,  they  will  by  that  time  be  such 
130 


On  Education 

as  shall  deserve  the  regard  and  honor  of  all 
men  where  they  pass,  and  the  society  and 
friendship  of  those  in  all  places  who  are  best 
and  most  eminent.  And,  perhaps,  then  other 
nations  will  be  glad  to  visit  us  for  their 
breeding,  or  else  to  imitate  us  in  their  own 
country. 

Now,  lastly,  for  their  diet  there  cannot  be 
much  to  say,  save  only  that  it  would  be  best 
in  the  same  house ;  for  much  time  else  would 
be  lost  abroad,  and  many  ill  habits  got ;  and 
that  it  should  be  plain,  healthful,  and  moder- 
ate, I  suppose  is  out  of  controversy.  Thus, 
Mr.  Hartlib,  you  have  a  general  view  in 
writing,  as  your  desire  was,  of  that  which 
at  several  times  I  had  discoursed  with  you 
concerning  the  best  and  noblest  way  of  edu- 
cation; not  beginning,  as  some  have  done, 
from  the  cradle,  which  yet  might  be  worth 
many  considerations,  if  brevity  had  not  been 
my  scope;  many  other  circumstances  also  I 
could  have  mentioned,  but  this,  to  such  as 
have  the  worth  in  them  to  make  trial,  for 
light  and  direction  may  be  enough.  Only  I 
believe  that  this  is  not  a  bow  for  every  man 
to  shoot  in,  that  counts  himself  a  teacher; 
but  will  require  sinews  almost  equal  to  those 
which  Homer  gave  Ulysses ;  yet  I  am  withal 
persuaded  that  it  may  prove  much  more  easy 
in  the  assay,  than  it  now  seems  at  distance, 
and  much  more  illustrious ;  hdwbeit,  not 
more  difficult  than  I  imagine,  and  that  im- 
131 


Milton 

agination  presents  me  with  nothing  but  very 
happy,  and  very  possible  according  to  best 
wishes;  if  God  have  so  decreed,  and  this  age 
have  spirit  and  capacity  enough  to  appre- 
hend. 


132 


Areopagitica 


133 


AREOPAGITICA. 

A    SPEECH    FOR 
THE    LIBERTY    OF    UNLICENSED    PRINTING. 

TO    THE    PARLIAMENT    OF    ENGLAND. 

"This  is  true  liberty,  when  free-born  men, 
Having  to  advise  the  public,  may  speak  free, 
Which    he    who    can,    and   will,    deserves   high 

praise ; 

Who  neither  can,  nor  will,  may  hold  his  peace: 
What  can  be  juster  in  a  state  than  this?" 

— Euripid.  Hicetid. 

["In  England,  in  1556,  under  Mary,  the  Sta- 
tioners' Company  was  invested  with  legal  privi- 
leges, having  the  twofold  object  of  protecting  the 
book  trade  and  controlling  writers.  All  publica- 
tions \vere  required  to  be  registered  in  the  register 
of  the  company.  No  persons  could  set  up  a 
press  without  a  license,  or  print  anything  which 
had  not  been  previously  approved  by  some  offi- 
cial censor.  .  .  .  But  the  fall  of  the  royal  au- 
thority did  not  mean  the  emancipation  of  the 
press.  The  Parliament  had  no  intention  of  let- 
ting go  the  control  which  the  monarchy  had 
exercised.  .  .  .  The  Star  Chamber  was  abol- 
ished, but  its  powers  of  search  and  seizure  were 
transferred  to  the  Company  of  Stationers. 
Licensing  was  to  go  on  as  before,  but  to  be 
exercised  by  special  commissioners,  instead  of  by 
the  Archbishop  and  the  Bishop  of  London.  Only 
whereas,  before,  contraband  had  consisted  of 
Presbyterian  books,  henceforward  it  was  Catholic 
and  Anglican  books  which  would  be  suppressed. 
335 


Milton 

"Such  was  not  Milton's  idea  of  the  liberty  of 
thought  and  speech  in  a  free  commonwealth. 
.  .  .  The  'Areopagitica,  for  the  Liberty  of 
unlicensed  Printing,'  came  out  in  November, 
1644,  an  unlicensed,  unregistered  publication, 
without  printer's  or  bookseller's  name.  It  was 
cast  in  the  form  of  a  speech  addressed  to  the 
Parliament.  The  motto  was  taken  from  Euripi- 
des, and  printed  in  the  original  Greek,  which  was 
not,  when  addressed  to  the  Parliament  of  1644, 
the  absurdity  which  it  would  be  now.  The  title 
is  less  appropriate,  being  borrowed  from  the 
'  Areopagitic  Discourse'  of  Isocrates,  between  which 
and  Milton's  'Speech'  there  is  no  resemblance 
either  in  substance  or  style.  .  .  .  Milton's 
Speech  is  in  his  own  best  style;  a  copious  flood 
of  majestic  eloquence,  the  outpouring  of  a  noble 
soul  with  a  divine  scorn  of  narrow  dogma  and 
paltry  aims." — Mark  Pattison's  "Milton."] 

THEY,  -who  to  states  and  governors  of 
the  commonwealth  direct  their  speech,  high 
court  of  parliament!  or  wanting  such  access 
in  a  private  condition,  write  that  which  they 
foresee  may  advance  the  public  good ;  I  sup- 
pose them,  as  at  the  beginning  of  no  mean 
endeavor,  not  a  little  altered  and  moved  in- 
wardly in  their  minds;  some  with  doubt  of 
what  will  be  the  success,  others  with  fear 
of  what  will  be  the  censure ;  some  with  hope, 
others  with  confidence  of  what  the}'  have  to 
speak.  And  me  perhaps  each  of  these  dispo- 
sitions, as  the  subject  was  whereon  I  entered, 
may  have  at  other  times  variously  affected ; 
and  likely  might  in  these  foremost  expres- 
sions now  also  disclose  which  of  them 
136 


Areopagitica 

swayed  most,  but  that  the  very  attempt  of 
this  address  thus  made,  and  the  thought  of 
whom  it  hath  recourse  to,  hath  got  the 
power  within  me  to  a  passion,  far  more  wel- 
come than  incidental  to  a  preface. 

Which  though  I  stay  not  to  confess  ere 
any  ask,  I  shall  be  blameless,  if  it  be  no 
other  than  the  joy  and  gratulation  -which  it 
brings  to  all  who  wish  to  promote  their 
country's  liberty;  whereof  this  whole  dis- 
course proposed  will  be  a  certain  testimony, 
if  not  a  trophy.  For  this  is  not  the  liberty 
which  we  can  hope,  that  no  grievance  ever 
should  arise  in  the  commonwealth :  that  let 
no  man  in  this  world  expect ;  but  when  com- 
plaints are  freely  heard,  deeply  considered, 
and  speedily  reformed,  then  is  the  utmost 
bound  of  civil  liberty  obtained  that  wise 
men  look  for.  To  which  if  I  now  manifest, 
by  the  very  sound  of  this  which  I  shall 
utter,  that  we  are  already  in  good  part 
arrived,  and  yet  from  such  a  steep  dis- 
advantage of  tyranny  and  superstition 
grounded  into  our  principles,  .as  was  beyond 
the  manhood  of  a  Roman  recovery,  it  will  be 
attributed  first,  as  is  most  due,  to  the  strong 
assistance  of  God,  our  deliverer;  next,  to 
your  faithful  guidance  and  undaunted  wis- 
dom, lords  and  commons  of  England!  Nei- 
ther is  it  in  God's  esteem,  the  diminution 
of  his  glory,  when  honorable  things  are 
spoken  of  good  men,  and  worthy  magis- 
137 


Milton 

trates;  which  if  I  now  first  should  begin  to 
do,  after  so  fair  a  progress  of  your  laudable 
deeds,  and  such  a  long  obligement  upon  the 
•whole  realm  to  your  indefatigable  virtues, 
I  might  be  justly  reckoned  among  the  tar- 
diest and  the  unwillingest  of  them  that 
praise  ye. 

Nevertheless  there  being  three  principal 
things,  without  which  all  praising  is  but 
courtship  and  flatter}' :  first,  when  that  only 
is  praised  which  is  solidly  worth  praise; 
next,  when  greatest  likelihoods  are  brought, 
that  such  things  are  truly  and  really  in  those 
persons  to  whom  they  are  ascribed ;  the 
other,  when  he  who  praises,  by  showing  that 
such  his  actual  persuasion  is  of  whom  he 
•writes,  can  demonstrate  that  he  flatters  not ; 
the  former  two  of  these  I  have  heretofore 
endeavored,  rescuing  the  employment  from 
him  who  went  about  to  impair  your  merits 
with  a  trivial  and  malignant  encomium ;  the 
latter  as  belonging  chiefly  to  mine  own 
acquittal,  that  whom  I  so  extolled  I  did  not 
flatter,  hath  been  reserved  opportunely  to 
this  occasion.  For  he  who  freely  magnifies 
what  hath  been  nobly  done,  and  fears  not  to 
declare  as  freely  what  might  be  done  better, 
gives  ye  the  best  covenant  of  his  fidelity ; 
and  that  his  loyalist  affection  and  his  hope 
waits  on  your  proceedings.  His  highest 
praising  is  not  flattery,  and  his  plainest  ad- 
vice is  a  kind  of  praising;  for  though  I 
138 


Areopagitica 

should  affirm  and  hold  by  argument,  that  it 
would  fare  better  with  truth,  with  learning, 
and  the  commonwealth,  if  one  of  your  pub- 
lished orders,  which  I  should  name,  were 
•called  in;  yet  at  the  same  time  it  could  not 
but  much  redound  to  the  lustre  of  your  mild 
and  equal  government,  whenas  private  per- 
sons are  hereby  animated  to  think  ye  better 
pleased  with  public  advice  than  other  statists 
have  been  delighted  heretofore  with  public 
flattery.  And  men  will  then  see  what  differ- 
ence there  is  between  the  magnanimity  of 
a  triennial  parliament,  and  that  jealous 
haughtiness  of  prelates  and  cabin  counsellors 
that  usurped  of  late,  whenas  they  shall  ob- 
serve ye  in  the  midst  of  your  victories  and 
successes  more  gently  brooking  written  ex- 
ceptions against  a  voted  order,  than  other 
courts,  which  had  produced  nothing  worth 
memory  but  the  \veak  ostentation  of  wealth, 
would  have  endured  the  least  signified  dis- 
like at  any  sudden  proclamation. 

If  I  should  thus  far  presume  upon  the  meek 
demeanor  of  your  civil  and  gentle  greatness, 
lords  and  commons !  as  what  your  published 
order  hath  directly  said,  that  to  gainsay,  I 
might  defend  myself  with  ease,  if  any  should 
accuse  me  of  being  new  or  insolent,  did  they 
but  know  how  much  better  I  find  ye  esteem 
it  to  imitate  the  old  and  elegant  humanity 
of  Greece,  than  the  barbaric  pride  of  a  Hun- 
nish  and  Norwegian  stateliness.  And  out  of 
139 


Milton 

those  ages,  to  whose  polite  wisdom  and  let- 
ters we  owe  that  we  are  not  yet  Goths  and 
Jutlanders,  I  could  name  him  who  from  his 
private  house  wrote  that  discourse  to  the 
parliament  of  Athens,  that  persuades  them 
to  change  the  form  of  democracy  which  was 
then  established.  Such  honor  was  done  in 
those  days  to  men  who  professed  the  study 
of  wisdom  and  eloquence,  not  only  in  their 
own  country,  but  in  other  lands,  that  cities 
and  signiories  heard  thefn  gladly,  and  with 
great  respect,  if  they  had  aught  in  public 
to  admonish  the  state.  Thus  did  Dion  Pru- 
sarus,  a  stranger  and  a  private  orator, 
counsel  the  Rhodians  against  a  former  edict ; 
and  I  abound  with  other  like  examples, 
which  to  set  here  would  be  superfluous.  But 
if  from  the  industry  of  a  life  wholly  dedicated 
to  studious  labors,  and  those  natural  endow- 
ments haply  not  the  worst  for  two  and  fifty 
degrees  of  northern  latitude,  so  much  must 
be"  derogated,  as  to  count  me  not  equal  to 
any  of  those  who  had  this  privilege,  I  would 
obtain  to  be  thought  not  so  inferior,  as 
yourselves  are  superior  to  the  most  of  them 
who  received  their  counsel ;  and  how  far  you 
excel  them,  be  assured,  lords  and  commons ! 
there  can  be  no  greater  testimony  appear, 
than  when  your  prudent  spirit  acknowledges 
and  obeys  the  voice  of  reason,  from  what 
quarter  soever  it  be  heard  speaking;  and 
renders  ye  as  willing  to  repeal  any  act  of 
140 


Areopagitica 

your  own  setting  forth,  as  any  set  forth  by 
your  predecessors. 

If  ye  be  thus  resolved,  as  it  were  injury  to 
think  ye  were  not,  I  know  not  what  should 
withhold  me  from  presenting  ye  with  a  fit 
instance  wherein  to  show  both  that  love  of 
truth  which  ye  eminently  profess,  and  that 
uprightness  of  your  judgment  wrhich  is  not 
wont  to  be  partial  to  yourselves ;  by  judging 
over  again  that  order  which  ye  have  or- 
dained "to  regulate  printing:  that  no 
book,  pamphlet,  or  paper  shall  be  henceforth 
printed,  unless  the  same  be  first  approved 
and  licensed  by  such,  or  at  least  one  of  such, 
as  shall  be  thereto  appointed."  For  that 
part  which  preserves  justly  every  man's  copy 
to  himself,  or  provides  for  the  poor,  I  touch 
not ;  only  wish  they  be  not  made  pretences  to 
abuse  and  persecute  honest  and  painful  men, 
who  offend  not  in  either  of  these  particulars. 
But  that  other  clause  of  licensing  books, 
which  we  thought  had  died  with  his  brother 
quadragesimal  and  matrimonial  when  the 
prelates  expired,  I  shall  now  attend  with 
such  a  homilv,  as  shall  lay  before  }*e,  first, 
the  inventors  of  it  to  be  those  whom  ye  will 
be  loath  to  own  ;  next,  what  is  to  be  thought 
in  general  of  reading,  whatever  sort  the 
books  be ;  and  that  this  order  avails  nothing 
to  the  suppressing  of  scandalous,  seditious, 
and  libellous  books,  which  were  mainly  in- 
tended to  be  suppressed.  Last,  that  it  will 
141 


Milton 

be  primely  to  the  discouragement  of  all 
learning,  and  the  stop  of  truth,  not  only  by 
disexercising  and  blunting  our  abilities,  in 
what  we  know  already,  but  by  hindering 
and  cropping  the  discovery  that  might  be 
yet  further  made,  both  in  religious  and  civil 
wisdom. 

I  deny  not,  but  that  it  is  of  greatest  con- 
cernment in  the  church  and  commonwealth, 
to  have  a  vigilant  eye  how  books  demean 
themselves,  as  well  as  men ;  and  thereafter  to 
confine,  imprison,  and  do  sharpest  justice  on 
them  as  malefactors ;  for  books  are  not  abso- 
lutely dead  things,  but  do  contain  a  progeny 
•of  life  in  them  to  be  as  active  as  that  soul 
•was  whose  progeny  they  are;  nay,  they  do 
preserve  as  in  a  vial  the  purest  efficacy  and 
extraction  of  that  living  intellect  that  bred 
them.  I  know  they  are  as  lively,  and  as 
vigorously  productive,  as  those  fabulous 
dragon's  teeth:  and  being  sown  up  and 
down,  may  chance  to  .spring  up  armed  men. 
And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  unless  wariness 
be  used,  as  good  almost  kill  a  man  as  kill  a 
good  book:  who  kills  a  man  kills  a  reason- 
able creature,  God's  image;  but  he  who  de- 
stroys a  good  book,  kills  reason  itself,  kills 
the  image  of  God,  as  it  were,  in  the  eye. 
Many  a  man  lives  a  burden  to  the  earth ; 
but  a  good  book  is  the  precious  life-blood  of 
a  master-spirit,  embalmed  and  treasured  up 
on  purpose  to  a  life  beyond  life.  It  is  true, 
142 


Areopagitica 

no  age  can  restore  a  life,  whereof,  perhaps, 
there  is  no  great  loss;  and  revolutions  of 
ages  do  not  oft  recover  the  loss  of  a  rejected 
truth,  for  the  want  of  which  whole  nations 
fare  the  worse.  We  should  be  wary,  there- 
fore, what  persecution  we  raise  against  the 
living  labors  of  public  men,  how  we  spill 
that  seasoned  life  of  man,  preserved  and 
stored  up  in  books;  since  we  see  a  kind  of 
homicide  may  be  thus  committed,  sometimes 
a  martyrdom ;  and  if  it  extend  to  the  whole 
impression,  a  kind  of  massacre,  whereof  the 
execution  ends  not  in  the  slaying  of  an  ele- 
mental life,  but  strikes  at  the  ethereal  and 
fifth  essence,  the  breath  of  reason  itself;  slays 
an  immortality  rather  than  a  life.  But  lest 
I  should  be  condemned  of  introducing  license, 
while  I  oppose  licensing,  I  refuse  not  the 
pains  to  be  so  much  historical,  as  will  serve 
to  show  what  hath  been  done  by  ancient 
and  famous  commonwealths,  against  this 
disorder,  till  the  very  time  that  this  project 
of  licensing  crept  out  of  the  inquisition,  was 
catched  up  by  our  prelates,  and  hath  caught 
some  of  our  presbyters. 

In  Athens,  where  books  and  wits  were  ever 
busier  than  in  any  other  part  of  Greece,  I 
find  but  only  two  sorts  of  writings  which  the 
magistrate  cared  to  take  notice  of;  those 
either  blasphemous  and  atheistical,  or  libel- 
lous. Thus  the  books  of  Protagoras  were  by 
the  judges  of  Areopagus  commanded  to  be 
143 


Milton 

burnt,  and  himself  banished  the  territory  for 
a  discourse,  begun  with  his  confessing  not  to 
know  "whether  there  were  gods,  or  whether 
not."  And  against  defaming,  it  was  agreed 
that  none  should  be  traduced  by  name,  as 
was  the  manner  of  Vetus  Comcedia,  wherebv 
we  may  guess  how  they  censured  libelling; 
and  this  course  was  quick  enough,  as  Cicero 
writes,  to  quell  both  the  desperate  wits  of 
other  atheists,  and  the  open  way  of  defam- 
ing, as  the  event  showed.  Of  other  sects  and 
opinions,  though  tending  to  voluptuousness, 
and  the  denying  of  divine  Providence,  they 
took  no  heed.  Therefore  we  do  not  read 
that  either  Epicurus,  or  that  libertine  school 
of  Cyrene,  or  what  the  Cynic  impudence 
uttered,  was  ever  questioned  by  the  laws. 
Neither  is  it  recorded  that  the  writings  of 
those  old  comedians  were  suppressed,  though 
the  acting  of  them  were  forbid ;  and  that 
Plato  commended  the  reading  of  Aristo- 
phanes, the  loosest  of  them  all,  to  his  royal 
scholar,  Dionysius,  is  commonly  known,  and 
may  be  excused,  if  holy  Chrysostom,  as  is  re- 
ported, nightly  studied  so  much  the  same 
author,  and  had  the  art  to  cleanse  a  scurri- 
lous vehemence  into  the  style  of  a  rousing 
sermon. 

'That    other  leading  city   of  Greece,   Lace- 
daemon,    considering    that    Lycurgus    their 
lawgiver  was  so  addicted  to  elegant  learning, 
as   to  have  been  the  first  that  brought  out 
144 


Areopagitica 

of  Ionia  the  scattered  works  of  Homer,  and 
sent  the  poet  Thales  from  Crete,  to  prepare 
and  mollify  the  Spartan  surliness  with  his 
smooth  songs  and  odes,  the  better  to  plant 
among  them  law  and  civility;  it  is  to  be 
wondered  how  museless  and  unbookish  they 
were,  minding  nought  but  the  feats  of  war. 
There  needed  no  licensing  of  books  among 
thein,  for  they  disliked  all  but  their  own 
laconic  apophthegms,  and  took  a  slight  occa- 
sion to  chase  Archilochus  out  of  their  city, 
perhaps  for  composing  in  a  higher  strain  than 
their  own  soldiery  ballads  and  roundels  could 
reach  to ;  or  if  it  were  for  his  broad  verses, 
they  were  not  therein  so  cautious,  but  they 
were  as  dissolute  in  their  promiscuous  con- 
versing ;  whence  Euripides  affirms,  in  Androm- 
ache, that  their  women  were  all  unchaste. 

This  much  may  give  us  light  after  -what 
sort  of  books  were  prohibited  among  the 
Greeks.  The  Romans  also  for  many  ages 
trained  up  only  to  a  military  roughness,  re- 
sembling most  the  Lacedarmonian  guise, 
knew  of  learning  little  but  what  their  twelve 
tables  and  the  pontific  college  with  their 
augurs  and  flamens  taught  them  in  religion 
and  law ;  so  unaccjuainted  with  other  learn- 
ing, that  when  Carneades  and  Critolaus, 
with  the  stoic  Diogenes,  coming  ambassa- 
dors to  Rome,  took  thereby  occasion  to  give 
the  city  a  taste  of  their  philosophy,  they 
were  suspected  for  seducers  by  no  less  a  man 
10  145 


Milton 

than  Cato  the  Censor,  who  moved  it  in  the 
senate  to  dismiss  them  speedily,  and  to  ban- 
ish all  such  Attic  babblers  out  of  Italy. 
But  Scipio  and  others  of  the  noblest  senators 
withstood  him  and  his  old  Sabine  austerity ; 
honored  and  admired  the  men ;  and  the 
censor  himself  at  last,  in  his  old  age,  fell  to 
the  study  of  that  whereof  before  he  was 
so  scrupulous.  And  yet,  at  the  same  time, 
Nsevius  and  Plautus,  the  first  Latin  come- 
dians, had  filled  the  city  with  all  the  bor- 
rowed scenes  of  Menander  and  Philemon. 
Then  began  to  be  considered  there  also  what 
was  to  be  done  to  libellous  books  and 
-authors;  for  Nasvius  was  quickly  cast  into 
prison  for  his  unbridled  pen,  and  released  by 
the  tribunes  upon  his  recantation :  we  read 
also  that  libels  were  burnt,  and  the  makers 
punished,  by  Augustus. 

The  like  severity,  no  doubt,  was  used,  if 
aught  were  impiously  written  against  their 
•esteemed  gods.  Except  in  these  two  points, 
how  the  world  went  in  books,  the  magis- 
trate kept  no  reckoning.  And  therefore 
Lucretius,  without  impeachment,  versifies  his 
Epicurism  to  Memmius,  and  had  the  honor 
to  be  set  forth  the  second  time  by  Cicero,  so 
great  a  father  of  the  commonwealth ;  al- 
though himself  disputes  against  that  opinion 
in  his  own  writings.  Nor  was  the  satirical 
sharpness  or  naked  plainness  of  Lucilius,  or 
Catullus,  or  Flaccus,  by  any  order  prohil> 
146 


Areopagitica 

ited.  And  for  matters  of  state,  the  story  of 
Titus  Livius,  though  it  extolled  that  part 
which  Pompey  held,  was  not  therefore  sup- 
pressed by  Octavius  Caesar,  of  the  other  fac- 
tion. But  that  Naso  was  by  him  banished 
in  his  old  age,  for  the  wanton  poems  of  his 
youth,  was  but  a  mere  covert  of  state  over 
some  secret  cause;  and  besides,  the  books, 
were  neither  banished  nor  called  in.  From 
hence  we  shall  meet  with  little  else  but 
t\rranny  in  the  Roman  empire,  that  we  may 
not  marvel,  if  not  so  often  bad  as  good 
books  were  silenced.  I  shall  therefore  deem 
to  have  been  large  enough,  in  producing 
what  among  the  ancients  was  punishable  to 
write,  save  only  which,  all  other  arguments, 
were  free  to  treat  on. 

By  this  time  the  emperors  were  become 
Christians,  whose  discipline  in  this  point  I 
do  not  find  to  have  been  more  severe  than 
what  was  formerly  in  practice.  The  books 
of  those  whom  they  took  to  be  grand  here- 
tics were  examined,  refuted,  and  condemned 
in  the  general  councils ;  and  not  till  then  were 
prohibited,  or  burnt,  by  authority  of  the 
emperor.  As  for  the  writings  of  heathen 
authors,  unless  they  were  plain  invectives 
against  Christianity,  as  those  of  Porphyrius 
and  Proclus,  the}'  met  with  no  interdict  that 
can  be  cited,  till  about  the  year  400,  in  a 
Carthaginian  council,  wherein  bishops  them- 
selves were  forbid  to  read  the  books  of 
147 


Milton 

Gentiles,  but  heresies  they  might  read  ;  while 
others  long  before  them,  on  the  contrary, 
scrupled  more  the  books  of  heretics,  than  of 
Gentiles.  And  that  the  primitive  councils 
and  bishops  were  wont  only  to  declare  what 
books  were  not  commendable,  passing  no 
further,  but  leaving  it  to  each  one's  con- 
science to  read  or  to  lay  by,  till  after  the 
year  800,  is  observed  already  by  Padre 
Paolo,  the  great  unmasker  of  the  Trentine 
council.  After  which  time  the  popes  of  Rome, 
engrossing  what  they  pleased  of  political 
rule  into  their  own  hands,  extended  their 
dominion  over  men's  eyes,  as  they  had  before 
over  their  judgments,  burning  and  prohibit- 
ing to  be  read  what  they  fancied  not ;  yet 
sparing  in  their  censures,  and  the  books  not 
many  which  they  so  dealt  with ;  till  Martin 
the  Fifth,  by  his  bull,  not  only  prohibited, 
but  was  the  first  that  excommunicated  the 
reading  of  heretical  books;  for  about  that 
time  Wickliffe  and  Husse  growing  terrible, 
were  they  who  first  drove  the  papal  court  to 
a  stricter  policy  of  prohibiting.  Which  course 
Leo  the  Tenth  and  his  successors  followed, 
until  the  council  of  Trent  and  the  Spanish 
inquisition,  engendering  together,  brought 
forth  or  perfected  those  catalogues  and  ex- 
purging  indexes,  that  rake  through  the  en- 
trails of  many  an  old  good  author,  with  a 
violation  worse  than  any  could  be  offered  to 
his  tomb. 

14S 


Areopagitica 

Nor  did  the}-  stay  in  matters  heretical,  but 
any  subject  that  was  not  to  their  palate, 
thev  either  condemned  in  a  prohibition,  or 
had  it  straight  into  the  new  purgatory  of 
an  index.  To  fill  up  the  measure  of  encroach- 
ment, their  last  invention  was  to  ordain  that 
no  book,  pamphlet,  or  paper  should  be 
printed  (as  if  St.  Peter  had  bequeathed  them 
the  keys  of  the  press  also  as  well  as  of 
Paradise)  unless  it  wrere  approved  and  li- 
censed under  the  hands  of  two  or  three 
gluttonous  friars.  For  example : — 

"Let  the  Chancellor  Cini  be  pleased  to  see  if  in 
this  present  work  be  contained  aught  that  may 
withstand  the  printing. 

"Vincent  Rabbata,  Vicar  of  Florence." 

"I  have  seen  this  present  work,  and  find  nothing 
athwart  the  catholic  faith  and  good  manners :  in 
witness  whereof  I  have  given,  &c. 

"Nicolo  Cini,  Chancellor  of  Florence." 

"Attending  the  precedent  relation,  it  is  allowed 
that  this  present  work  of  Davanzati  may  be 
printed.  Vincent  Rabbata,"  &c. 

"It  may  be  printed,  July  15. 

"Friar  Simon  Mompei   d'Amelia,  Chancellor 
of  the  Holy  Office  in  Florence." 

Sure  they  have  a  conceit,  if  he  of  the  bot- 
tomless pit  had  not  long  since  broke  prison, 
that  this  quadruple  exorcism  would  bar  him 
down.  I  fear  their  next  design  will  be  to  get 
into  their  custody  the  licensing  of  that  which 
149 


Milton 

thay  say  Claudius  intended,  but  went  not 
through  with.  Vouchsafe  to  see  another  of 
their  forms,  the  Roman  stamp: — 

"Imprimatur,   If  it  seem  good  to  the  reverend 
master  of  the  Holy  Palace. 

"Belcastro,  Vicegerent." 
"Imprimatur, 

"Friar  Nicholo  Rodolphi,  Master  of  the  Holy 
Palace." 

Sometimes  five  imprimaturs  are  seen  to- 
gether, dialogue  wise,  in  the  piazza  of  one 
titlepage,  complimenting  and  ducking  each  to 
other  with  their  shaven  reverences,  whether 
the  author,  who  stands  by  in  perplexity  at 
the  foot  of  his  epistle,  shall  to  the  press  or 
to  the  spunge.  These  are  the  prettv  respon- 
sories,  these  are  the  dear  antiphonies,  that 
so  bewitched  of  late  our  prelates  and  their 
chaplains,  with  the  goodly  echo  they  made ; 
and  besotted  us  to  the  gav  imitation  of  a 
lordly  imprimatur,  one  from  Lambeth-house, 
another  from  the  west  end  of  Paul's;  so 
apishly  romanizing,  that  the  word  of  com- 
mand still  was  set  down  in  Latin;  as  if  the 
learned  grammatical  pen  that  wrote  it  would 
cast  no  ink  without  Latin;  or  perhaps,  as 
they  sought,  because  no  vulgar  tongue  was 
worthy  to  express  the  pure  conceit  of  an 
imprimatur;  but  rather,  as  I  hope,  for  that 
our  English,  the  language  of  men  ever  fa- 
mous and  foremost  in  the  achievements  of 
liberty,  will  not  easily  find  servile  letters 
150 


Areopagitica 

enow  to  spell  such  a  dictatory  presumption 
Englished. 

And  thus  ye  have  the  inventors  and  the 
original  of  book  licensing  ripped  up  and 
drawn  as  lineally  as  any  pedigree.  We  have 
it  not,  that  can  be  heard  of,  from  any  an- 
cient state,  or  polity,  or  church,  nor  by  any 
statute  left  us  bv  our  ancestors  elder  or 
later;  nor  from  the  modern  custom  of  any 
reformed  city  or  church  abroad;  but  from  the 
most  antichristian  council,  and  the  most 
tyrannous  inquisition  that  ever  inquired. 
Till  then  books  were  ever  as  freely  admitted 
into  the  world  as  any  other  birth ;  the  issue 
of  the  brain  was  no  more  stifled  than  the 
issue  of  the  womb:  no  envious  Juno  sat 
cross-legged  over  the  nativity  of  any  man's 
intellectual  offspring;  but  if  it  proved  a  mon- 
ster, who  denies  but  that  it  was  justly  burnt, 
or  sunk  into  the  sea?  But  that  a  book,  in 
worse  condition  than  a  peccant  soul,  should 
be  to  stand  before  a  jury  ere  it  be  born  to 
the  world,  and  undergo  yet  in  darkness  the 
judgment  of  Radamanth  and  his  colleagues, 
ere  it  can  pass  the  ferry  backward  into  light, 
\vas  never  heard  before,  till  that  mysterious 
iniquity,  provoked  and  troubled  at  the  first 
entrance  of  reformation,  sought  out  new 
limboes  and  new  hells  wherein  they  might 
include  our  books  also  within  the  number  of 
their  damned.  And  this  was  the  rare  morsel 
so  officiously  snatched  up,  and  so  ill-favoredly 
351 


Milton 

imitated  by  our  inquisiturient  bishops,  and 
the  attendant  minorites,  their  chaplains. 
That  ye  like  not  now  these  most  certain 
authors  of  this  licensing  order,  and  that  all 
sinister  intention  was  far  distant  from  your 
thoughts,  when  ye  were  importuned  the 
passing  it,  all  men  who  know  the  integrity 
of  your  actions,  and  how  ye  honor  truth, 
•will  clear  ye  readily. 

But  some  will  say,  what  though  the  in- 
ventors were  bad,  the  thing  for  all  that  may 
be  good.  It  may  so ;  yet  if  that  thing  be  no 
such  deep  invention,  but  obvious  and  easy 
for  any  man  to  light  on,  and  yet  best  and 
wisest  commonwealths  through  all  ages  and 
occasions  have  forborne  to  use  it,  and  falsest 
seducers  and  oppressors  of  men  were  the  first 
who  took  it  up,  and  to  no  other  purpose 
but  to  obstruct  and  hinder  the  first  approach 
of  reformation;  I  am  of  those  who  believe,  it 
will  be  a  harder  alchymy  than  Lullius  ever 
knew,  to  sublimate  any  good  use  out  of  such 
an  invention.  Yet  this  only  is  what  I  request 
to  gain  from  this  reason,  that  it  may  be 
held  a  dangerous  and  suspicious  fruit,  as  cer- 
tainly it  deserves,  for  the  tree  that  bore  it, 
until  I  can  dissect  one  by  one  the  properties 
it  has.  But  I  have  first  to  finish,  as  was 
propounded,  what  is  to  be  thought  in  general 
of  reading  books,  whatever  sort  they  be,  and 
whether  be  more  the  benefit  or  the  harm 
that  thence  proceeds. 

152 


Areopagitica 

Not  to  insist  upon  the  examples  of  Moses, 
Daniel,  and  Paul,  who  were  skilful  in  all  the 
learning  of  the  Egyptians,  Chaldeans,  and 
Greeks,  which  could  not  probably  be  with- 
out reading  their  books  of  all  sorts,  in  Paul 
especially,  who  though^  it  no  defilement  to 
insert  into  holy  scripture  the  sentences  of 
three  Greek  poets,  and  one  of  them  a  tra- 
gedian ;  the  question  was  notwithstanding 
sometimes  controverted  among  the  primitive 
doctors,  but  with  great  odds  on  that  side 
•which  affirmed  it  both  lawful  and  profitable, 
as  was  then  evidently  perceived,  when  Julian 
the  Apostate,  and  subtlest  enemy  to  our 
faith,  made  a  decree  forbidding  Christians 
the  study  of  heathen  learning;  for,  said  he, 
thev  wound  us  with  our  own  weapons,  and 
with  our  own  arts  and  sciences  they  over- 
come us.  And  indeed  the  Christians  were  put 
so  to  their  shifts  by  this  crafty  means,  and 
so  much  in  danger  to  decline  into  all  igno- 
rance, that  the  two  Appollinarii  were  fain,  as 
a  man  may  say,  to  coin  all  the  seven  liberal 
sciences  out  of  the  Bible,  reducing  it  into 
divers  forms  of  orations,  poems,  dialogues, 
even  to  the  calculating  of  a  new  Christian 
grammar.  • 

But,  saith  the  historian,  Socrates,  the 
providence  of  God  provided  better  than  the 
industry  of  Appollinarius  and  his  son,  by 
taking  away  that  illiterate  law  with  the  life 
of  him  who  devised  it.  So  great  an  injury 
153 


Milton 

they  then  held  it  to  be  deprived  of  Hellenic 
learning;  and  thought  it  a  persecution  more 
undermining,  and  secretly  decaying  the 
church,  than  the  open  cruelty  of  Decius  or 
Diocletian.  And  perhaps  it  was  with  the 
same  politic  drift  that  the  devil  whipped  St. 
Jerome  in  a  lenten  dream,  for  reading  Cicero  ; 
or  else  it  was  a  phantasm,  bred  by  the  fever 
which  had  then  seized  him.  For  had  an 
angel  been  his  discipliner,  unless  it  were  for 
dwelling  too  much  on  Ciceronianisms,  and 
had  chastised  the  reading,  not  the  vanity,  it 
had  been  plainly  partial,  first,  to  correct  him 
for  grave  Cicero,  and  not  for  scurril  Plautus, 
whom  he  confesses  to  have  been  reading  not 
long  before;  next  to  correct  him  onlv,  and 
let  so  many  more  ancient  fathers  wax  old  in 
those  pleasant  and  florid  studies,  without 
the  lash  of  such  a  tutoring  apparition ;  inso- 
much that  Basil  teaches  how  some  good  use 
may  be  made  of  Margites,  a  sportful  poem, 
not  now  extant,  writ  by  Homer;  and  why 
not  then  of  Morgante,  an  Italian  romance 
much  to  the  same  purpose? 

But  if  it  be  agreed  we  shall  be  tried  by 
visions,  there  is  a  vision  recorded  bv  Euse- 
bius,  far  ancienter  than  this  tale  of  Jerome, 
to  the  nun  Eustochium,  and  besides,  has 
nothing  of  a  fever  in  it.  Dionysius  Alexandri- 
nus  was,  about  the  year  240,  a  person  of  great 
name  in  the  church,  for  piety  and  learning, 
who  had  wont  to  avail  himself  much  against 
154 


Areopagitica 

heretics,  by  being  conversant  in  their  books ; 
until  a  certain  presbyter  laid  it  scrupulously 
to  his  conscience,  how  he  durst  venture 
himself  among  those  defiling  volumes.  The 
worthy  man,  loath  to  give  offence,  fell  into 
a  new  debate  with  himself,  what  was  to  be 
thought;  when  suddenly  a  vision  sent  from 
God  (it  is  his  own  epistle  that  so  avers  it) 
confirmed  him  in  these  words:  "Read  any 
books  whatever  come  to  thy  hands,  for  thou 
art  sufficient  both  to  judge  aright,  and  to 
examine  each  matter."  To  this  revelation  he 
assented  the  sooner,  as  he  confesses,  because 
it  was  answerable  to  that  of  the  apostle  to 
the  Thessalonians :  "Prove  all  things,  hold 
fast  that  which  is  good." 

And  he  might  have  added  another  remark- 
able saying  of  the  same  author:  "To  the 
pure,  all  things  are  pure;"  not  only  meats 
and  drinks,  but  all  kinds  of  knowledge, 
whether  of  good  or  evil :  the  knowledge  can- 
not defile,  nor  consequently  the  books,  if 
the  will  and  conscience  be  not  defiled.  For 
books  are  as  meats  and  viands  are ;  some  of 
good,  some  of  evil  substance;  and  yet  God 
in  that  unapocryphal  vision  said  without 
exception,  "Rise,  Peter,  kill  and  eat;"  leaving 
the  choice  to  each  man's  discretion.  Whole- 
some meats  to  a  vitiated  stomach  differ  lit- 
tle or  nothing  from  unwholesome;  and  best 
books  to  a  naughty  mind  are  not  unapplica- 
ble  to  occasions  of  evil.  Bad  meats  will 
155 


Milton 

scarce  breed  good  nourishment  in  the  health- 
iest concoction ;  but  herein  the  difference  is  of 
bad  books,  that  they  to  a  discreet  and  judi- 
cious reader  serve  in  many  respects  to  dis- 
cover, to  confute,  to  forewarn,  and  to  illus- 
trate. Whereof  what  better  witness  can  ye 
expect  I  should  produce,  than  one  of  your 
own  now  sitting  in  parliament,  the  chief  of 
learned  men  reputed  in  this  land,  Mr.  Selden ; 
whose  volume  of  natural  and  national 
laws  proves,  not  only  by  great  authorities 
brought  together,  but  by  exquisite  reasons 
and  theorems  almost  mathematically  dem- 
onstrative, that  all  opinions,  yea,  errors, 
known,  read,  and  collated,  are  of  main  ser- 
vice and  assistance  toward  the  speedy  at- 
tainment of  what  is  truest. 

I  conceive,  therefore,  that  when  God  did 
enlarge  the  universal  diet  of  man's  body, 
(saving  ever  the  rules  of  temperance,)  he 
then  also,  as  before,  left  arbitrary  the  dieting 
and  repasting  of  our  minds ;  as  wherein  every 
mature  man  might  have  to  exercise  his  own 
leading  capacity.  How  great  a  virtue  is 
temperance,  how  much  of  moment  through 
the  whole  life  of  man!  Yet  God  commits  the 
managing  so  great  a  trust,  without  particu- 
lar law  or  prescription,  wholly  to  the  de- 
meanor of  every  grown  man.  And  therefore 
when  he  himself  tabled  the  Jews  from  heaven, 
that  omer,  which  was  every  man's  daily 
portion  of  manna,  is  computed  to  have  been 
156 


Areopagitica 

more  than  might  have  well  sufficed  the 
heartiest  feeder  thrice  as  many  meals.  For 
those  actions  which  enter  into  a  man,  rather 
than  issue  out  of  him,  and  therefore  defile 
not,  God  uses  not  to  captivate  under  a  per- 
petual childhood  of  prescription,  but  trusts 
him  with  the  gift  of  reason  to  be  his  own 
chooser;  there  were  but  little  work  left  for 
preaching,  if  law  and  compulsion  should 
grow  so  fast  upon  those  things  which  here- 
tofore were  governed  only  by  exhortation. 
Solomon  informs  us,  that  much  reading  is  a 
weariness  to  the  flesh;  but  neither  he,  nor 
other  inspired  author,  tells  us  that  such  or 
such  reading  is  unlawful;  yet  certainly  had 
God  thought  good  to  limit  us  herein,  it  had 
been  much  more  expedient  to  have  told  us 
what  was  unlawful,  than  what  was  weari- 
some. 

As  for  the  burning  of  those  Ephesian  books 
by  St.  Paul's  converts;  it  is  replied,  the 
books  were  magic,  the  Syriac  so  renders 
them.  It  was  a  private  act,  a  voluntary 
act,  and  leaves  us  to  a  voluntary  imitation  • 
the  men  in  remorse  burnt  those  books  which 
were  their  own;  the  magistrate  by  this  ex- 
ample is  not  appointed ;  these  men  practised 
the  books,  another  might  perhaps  have  read 
them  in  some  sort  usefully.  Good  and  evil 
we  know  in  the  field  of  this  world  grow  up 
together  almost  inseparably ;  and  the  know- 
ledge of  good  is  so  involved  and  interwoven 
157 


Milton 

•with  the  knowledge  of  evil,  and  in  so  many 
cunning  resemblances  hardly  to  be  discerned, 
that  those  confused  seeds  which  were  im- 
posed upon  Pysche  as  an  incessant  labor  to 
cull  out,  and  sort  asunder,  were  not  more 
intermixed.  It  was  from  out  the  rind  of  one 
apple  tasted,  that  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil,  as  two  twins  cleaving  together, 
leaped  forth  into  the  world.  And  perhaps 
this  is  that  doom  which  Adam  fell  into  of 
knowing  good  and  evil;  that  is  to  say,  of 
knowing  good  by  evil. 

As  therefore  the  state  of  man  now  is;  what 
wisdom  can  there  be  to  choose,  what  con- 
tinence to  forbear,  without  the  knowledge  of 
evil?  He  that  can  apprehend  and  consider 
vice  with  all  her  baits  and  seeming  pleasures, 
and  yet  abstain,  and  yet  distinguish,  and 
yet  prefer  that  which  is  truly  better,  he  is  the 
true  warfaring  Christian.  I  cannot  praise  a 
fugitive  and  cloistered  virtue  unexercised  and 
unbreathed,  that  never  sallies  out  and  seeks 
her  adversary,  but  slinks  out  of  the  race, 
where  that  immortal  garland  is  to  be  run 
for,  not  without  dust  and  heat.  Assuredly 
we  bring  not  innocence  into  the  world,  we 
bring  impurity  much  rather;  that  which 
purifies  us  is  trial,  and  trial  is  by  what  is 
•contrary.  That  virtue  therefore  which  is  but 
a  youngling  in  the  contemplation  of  evil,  and 
knows  not  the  utmost  that  vice  promises  to 
laer  followers,  and  rejects  it,  is  but  a  blank 
158 


Areopagitica 

virtue,  not  a  pure;  her  whiteness  is  but  an 
excremental  whiteness;  which  was  the  rea- 
son why  our  sage  and  serious  poet  Spenser, 
(whom  I  dare  be  known  to  think  a  better 
teacher  than  Scotus  or  Aquinas,)  describing 
true  temperance  under  the  person  of  Guion, 
brings  him  in  with  his  palmer  through  the 
cave  of  Mammon,  and  the  bower  of  earthly 
bliss,  that  he  might  see  and  know,  and  yet 
abstain. 

Since  therefore  the  knowledge  and  survey 
of  vice  is  in  this  world  so  necessary  to  the 
constituting  of  human  virtue,  and  the  scan- 
ning of  error  to  the  confirmation  of  truth, 
how  can  we  more  safely,  and  with  less  dan- 
ger, scout  into  the  regions  of  sin  and  falsity, 
than  by  reading  all  manner  of  tractates,  and 
hearing  all  manner  of  reason?  And  this  is 
the  benefit  which  may  be  had  of  books  pro- 
miscuously read.  But  of  the  harm  that  may 
result  hence,  three  kinds  are  usually  reck- 
oned. First,  is  feared  the  infection  that  may 
spread ;  but  then,  all  human  learning  and 
controversy  in  religious  points  must  remove 
out  of  the  world,  yea,  the  Bible  itself;  for 
that  ofttimes  relates  blasphemy  not  nicely,  it 
describes  the  carnal  sense  of  wicked  men  not 
unelegantly,  it  brings  in  holiest  men  pas- 
sionately murmuring  against  Providence 
through  all  the  arguments  of  Epicurus :  in 
other  great  disputes  it  answers  dubiously 
and  darkly  to  the  common  reader;  and  ask 
159 


Milton 

a  Talmuclist  what  ails  the  modesty  of  his 
marginal  Keri,  that  Moses  and  all  the  proph- 
ets cannot  persuade  him  to  pronounce  the 
textual  Chetiv.  For  these  causes  we  all 
know  the  Bible  itself  put  by  the  papist  into 
the  first  rank  of  prohibited  books.  The 
ancientest  fathers  must  be  next  removed,  as 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  that  Eusebian 
book  of  evangelical  preparation,  transmit- 
ting our  ears  through  a  hoard  of  heathenish 
obscenities  to  receive  the  gospel.  Who  finds 
not  that  Irenaeus,  Epiphanius,  Jerome,  and 
others  discover  more  heresies  than  they  well 
confute,  and  that  oft  for  heresy  which  is  the 
truer  opinion? 

Nor  boots  it  to  say  for  these,  and  all  the 
heathen  writers  of  greatest  infection,  if  it 
must  be  thought  so,  with  whom  is  bound 
up  the  life  of  human  learning,  that  they 
wrote  in  an  unknown  tongue,  so  long  as  we 
are  sure  those  languages  are  known  as  well 
to  the  worst  of  men,  who  are  both  most 
able  and  most  diligent  to  instil  the  poison 
they  suck,  first  into  the  courts  of  princes, 
acquainting  them  with  the  choicest  delights, 
and  criticisms  of  sin.  As  perhaps  did  that 
Petronius,  whom  Nero  called  his  arbiter,  the 
master  of  his  revels;  and  that  notorious 
ribald  of  Arezzo,  dreaded  and  yet  dear  to  the 
Italian  courtiers.  I  name  not  him,  for  pos- 
terity's sake,  whom  Henry  the  Eighth  named 
in  merriment  his  vicar  of  hell.  By  which 
160 


Areopagitica 

compendious  way  all  the  contagion  that 
foreign  books  can  infuse  will  find  a  passage 
to  the  people  far  easier  and  shorter  than  an 
Indian  voyage,  though  it  could  be  sailed 
either  by  the  north  of  Cataio  eastward,  or  of 
Canada  westward,  while  our  Spanish  licens- 
ing gags  the  English  press  never  so  severely. 

But,  on  the  other  side,  that  infection  which 
is  from  books  of  controversy  in  religion,  is 
more  doubtful  and  dangerous  to  the  learned 
than  to  the  ignorant ;  and  yet  those  books 
must  be  permitted  untouched  by  the  licenser. 
It  will  be  hard  to  instance  where  any  igno- 
rant man  hath  been  ever  seduced  by  any 
papistical  book  in  English,  unless  it  were 
commended  and  expounded  to  him  by  some 
of  that  clergy ;  and  indeed  all  such  tractates, 
whether  false  or  true,  are  as  the  prophecy 
of  Isaiah  was  to  the  eunuch,  not  to  be  "un- 
derstood without  a  guide."  But  of  our 
priests  and  doctors  how  many  have  been 
corrupted  by  studying  the  comments  of 
Jesuits  and  Sorbonists,  and  how  fast  they 
could  transfuse  that  corruption  into  the 
people,  our  experience  is  both  late  and  sad. 
It  is  not  forgot,  since  the  acute  and  distinct 
Arminius  was  perverted  merely  by  the  perus- 
ing of  a  nameless  discourse  written  at  Delft, 
which  at  first  he  took  in  hand  to  confute. 

Seeing  therefore  that  those  books,  and 
those  in  great  abundance,  which  are  likeliest 
to  taint  both  life  and  doctrine,  cannot  be 
11  161 


Milton 

suppressed  without  the  fall  of  learning,  and 
of  all  ability  in  disputation,  and  that  these 
books  of  either  sort  are  most  and  soonest 
catching  to  the  learned,  (from  whom  to  the 
common  people  whatever  is  heretical  or  dis- 
solute may  quickly  be  conveyed,)  and  that 
evil  manners  are  as  perfectly  learnt  without 
books  a  thousand  other  ways  which  cannot 
be  stopped,  and  evil  doctrine  not  with  books 
can  propagate,  except  a  teacher  guide,  which 
he  might  also  do  -without  writing,  and  so 
beyond  prohibiting;  I  am  not  unable  to  un- 
fold, how  this  cautelous  enterprise  of  licens- 
ing can  be  exempted  from  the  number  of  vain 
and  impossible  attempts.  And  he  who  were 
pleasantly  disposed,  could  not  well  avoid 
to  liken  it  to  the  exploit  of  that  gallant 
man,  who  thought  to  pound  up  the  crows 
by  shutting  his  park  gate. 

Besides  another  inconvenience,  if  learned 
men  be  the  first  receivers  out  of  books,  and 
dispreaders  both  of  vice  and  error,  how  shall 
the  licensers  themselves  be  confided  in,  unless 
we  can  confer  upon  them,  or  they  assume  to 
themselves,  above  all  others  in  the  land,  the 
grace  of  infallibility  and  uncorruptedness? 
And  again,  if  it  be  true,  that  a  wise  man, 
like  a  good  refiner,  can  gather  gold  out  of 
the  drossiest  volume,  and  that  a  fool  will  be 
a  fool  with  the  best  book,  yea,  or  without 
Look;  there  is  no  reason  that  we  should 
deprive  a  wise  man  of  any  advantage  to  his 
162 


Areopagitica 

wisdom,  while  we  seek  to  restrain  from  a 
fool  that  which  being  restrained  will  be  no 
hinderance  to  his  folly.  For  if  there  should 
be  so  much  exactness  always  used  to  keep 
that  from  him  which  is  unfit  for  his  reading, 
we  should  in  the  judgment  of  Aristotle  not 
only,  but  of  Solomon,  and  of  our  Saviour, 
not  vouchsafe  him  good  precepts,  and  by 
consequence  not  willingly  admit  him  to  good 
books ;  as  being  certain  that  a  wise  man  will 
make  better  use  of  an  idle  pamphlet,  than  a 
fool  will  do  of  sacred  scripture. 

It  is  next  alleged,  we  must  not  expose  our- 
selves to  temptations  without  necessity,  and 
next  to  that,  not  employ  our  time  in  vain 
things.  To  both  these  objections  one  answer 
\vill  serve,  out  of  the  grounds  already  laid, 
that  to  all  men  such  books  are  not  tempta- 
tions, nor  vanities;  but  useful  drugs  and 
materials  wherewith  to  temper  and  compose 
effective  and  strong  medicines,  which  man's 
life  cannot  want.  The  rest,  as  children  and 
childish  men,  who  have  not  the  art  to  qual- 
ify and  prepare  these  working  minerals,  well 
may  be  exhorted  to  forbear;  but  hindered 
forcibly  they  cannot  be,  by  all  the  licensing 
that  sainted  inquisition  could  ever  yet  con- 
trive; which  is  what  I  promised  to  deliver 
next :  that  this  order  of  licensing  conduces 
nothing  to  the  end  for  which  it  was  framed ; 
and  hath  almost  prevented  me  by  being  clear 
already  while  thus  much  hath  been  explain- 
163 


Milton 

ing.  See  the  ingenuity  of  truth,  who,  when 
she  gets  a  free  and  willing  hand,  opens  her- 
self faster  than  the  pace  of  method  and  dis- 
course can  overtake  her.  It  was  the  task 
which  I  began  with,  to  show  that  no  nation, 
or  well  instituted  state,  if  they  valued  books 
at  all,  did  ever  use  this  way  of  licensing;  and 
it  might  be  answered,  that  this  is  a  piece  of 
prudence  lately  -discovered. 

To  which  I  return,  that  as  it  was  a  thing 
slight  and  obvious  to  think  on,  so  if  it  had 
been  difficult  to  find  out,  there  wanted  not 
among  them  long  since,  who  suggested  such 
a  course ;  which  they  not  following,  leave  us 
a  pattern  of  their  judgment  that  it  was  not 
the  not  knowing,  but  the  not  approving, 
which  was  the  cause  of  their  not  using  it. 
Plato,  a  man  of  high  authority  indeed,  but 
least  of  all  for  his  Commonwealth,  in  the 
book  of  his  laws,  which  no  city  ever  yet  re- 
ceived, fed  his  fancy  with  making  many 
edicts  to  his  airy  burgomasters,  which  they 
who  otherwise  admire  him,  wish  had  been 
rather  buried  and  excused  in  the  genial  cups 
of  an  academic  night  sitting.  By  which  laws 
he  seems  to  tolerate  no  kind  of  learning, 
but  by  unalterable  decree,  consisting  most 
of  practical  traditions,  to  the  attainment 
whereof  a  library  of  smaller  bulk  than  his 
own  dialogues  would  be  abundant.  And 
there  also  enacts,  that  no  poet  should  so 
much  as  read  to  any  private  man  what  he 
164- 


Areopagitica 

had  written,  until  the  judges  and  law  keep- 
ers had  seen  it,  and  allowed  it;  but  that 
Plato  meant  this  law  peculiarly  to  that  com- 
monwealth which  he  had  imagined,  and  to 
no  other,  is  evident.  Why  was  he  not  else  a 
lawgiver  to  himself,  but  a  transgressor,  and 
to  be  expelled  by  his  own  magistrates,  both 
for  the  wanton  epigrams  and  dialogues 
which  he  made,  and  his  perpetual  reading  of 
Sophron  Mimus  and  Aristophanes,  books  of 
grossest  infamy;  and  also  for  commending 
the  latter  of  them,  though  he  were  the  mali- 
cious libeller  of  his  chief  friends,  to  be  read 
by  the  tyrant  Dionysius,  who  had  little  need 
of  such  trash  to  spend  his  time  on?  But  that 
he  knew  this  licensing  of  poems  had  reference 
and  dependence  to  many  other  provisoes 
there  set  down  in  his  fancied  republic,  which 
in  this  world  could  have  no  place;  and  so 
neither  he  himself,  nor  any  magistrate  or 
city,  ever  imitated  that  course,  which,  taken 
apart  from  those  other  collateral  injunctions, 
must  needs  be  vain  and  fruitless. 

For  if  they  fell  upon  one  kind  of  strictness, 
unless  their  care  were  equal  to  regulate  all 
other  things  of  like  aptness  to  corrupt  the 
mind,  that  single  endeavor  they  knew  would 
be  but  a  fond  labor ;  to  shut  and  fortify  one 
gate  against  corruption,  and  be  necessitated 
to  leave  others  round  about  wide  open.  If 
we  think*  to  regulate  printing,  thereby  to 
rectify  manners,  we  must  regulate  all  recrea- 
165 


Milton 

tions  and  pastimes,  all  that  is  delightful  to 
man.  No  music  must  be  heard,  no  song  be 
set  or  sung,  but  what  is  grave  and  doric. 
There  must  be  licensing  dancers,  that  no 
gesture,  motion,  or  deportment  be  taught 
our  youth,  but  what  by  their  allowance  shall 
be  thought  honest ;  for  such  Plato  was  pro- 
vided of.  It  will  ask  more  than  the  work  of 
twenty  licensers  to  examine  all  the  lutes,  the 
violins,  and  the  guitars  in  every  house;  they 
must  not  be  suffered  to  prattle  as  they  do, 
but  must  be  licensed  what  they  may  say. 
And  who  shall  silence  all  the  airs  and  madri- 
gals that  whisper  softness  in  chambers?  The 
•windows  also,  and  the  balconies,  must  be 
thought  on;  these  are  shrewd  books,  with 
dangerous  frontispieces,  set  to  sale:  who 
shall  prohibit  them,  shall  twenty  licensers? 
The  villages  also  must  have  their  visitors  to 
inquire  what  lectures  the  bagpipe  and  the 
rebec  reads,  even  to  the  ballatry  and  the 
gamut  of  every  municipal  fiddler;  for  these 
are  the  countrj'tnan's  Arcadias,  and  his 
Monte  Mayors. 

Next,  what  more  national  corruption,  for 
which  England  hears  ill  abroad,  than  house- 
hold gluttony?  Who  shall  be  the  rectors  of 
our  daily  rioting?  And  what  shall  be  done 
to  inhibit  the  multitudes  that  frequent  those 
houses  where  drunkenness  is  sold  and  har- 
bored? Our  garments  also  should»be  referred 
to  the  licensing  of  some  more  sober  work- 
166 


Areopagitica 

masters,  to  see  them  cut  into  a  less  \vanton 
garb.  Who  shall  regulate  all  the  mixed  con- 
versation of  our  youth,  male  and  female  to- 
gether, as  is  the  fashion  of  this  country? 
Who  shall  still  appoint  what  shall  be  dis- 
coursed, what  presumed,  and  no  further? 
Lastly,  who  shall  forbid  and  separate  all  idle 
resort,  all  evil  company?  These  things  will 
be,  and  must  be;  but  how  they  shall  be  least 
hurtful,  how  least  enticing,  herein  consists 
the  grave  and  governing  wisdom  of  a  state. 
To  sequester  out  of  the  world  into  Atlantic 
and  Utopian  politics,  which  never  can  be 
drawn  into  use,  will  not  mend  our  condition  ; 
but  to  ordain  wisely  as  in  this  world  of  evil, 
in  the  midst  whereof  God  hath  placed  us  un- 
avoidably. Nor  is  it  Plato's  licensing  of 
books  will  do  this,  which  necessarily  pulls 
along  with  it  so  many  other  kinds  of  licens- 
ing, as  will  make  us  all  both  ridiculous  and 
weary,  and  yet  frustrate;  but  those  unwrit- 
ten, or  at  least  unconstraining  laws  of  vir- 
tuous education,  religious  and  civil  nurture, 
which  Plato  there  mentions,  as  the  bonds 
and  ligaments  of  the  commonwealth,  the  pil- 
lars and  the  sustainers  of  every  written 
statute ;  these  they  be,  which  will  bear  chief 
sway  in  such  matters  as  these,  when  all 
licensing  will  be  easily  eluded.  Impunity  and 
remissness  for  certain  are  the  bane  of  a  com- 
monwealth;  but  here  the  great  art  lies,  to 
discern  in  what  the  law  is  to  bid  restraint 
167 


Milton 

and  punishment,  and  in  what  things  per- 
suasion only  is  to  work.  If  every  action 
which  is  good  or  evil  in  man  at  ripe  years 
were  to  be  under  pittance,  prescription,  and 
compulsion,  what  were  virtue  but  a  name, 
what  praise  could  be  then  due  to  well  doing, 
what  gramercy  to  be  sober,  just,  or  con- 
tinent? 

Many  there  be  that  complain  of  divine 
Providence  for  suffering  Adam  to  transgress. 
Foolish  tongues!  when  God  gave  him  reason, 
he  gave  him  freedom  to  choose,  for  reason  is 
but  choosing;  he  had  been  else  a  mere  arti- 
ficial Adam,  such  an  Adam  as  he  is  in  the 
motions.  We  ourselves  esteem  not  of  that 
obedience,  or  love,  or  gift,  which  is  of  force ; 
God  therefore  left  him  free,  set  before  him  a 
provoking  object  ever  almost  in  his  e}^es; 
herein  consisted  his  merit,  herein  the  right  of 
his  reward,  the  praise  of  his  abstinence. 
Wherefore  did  he  create  passions  within  us, 
pleasures  round  about  us,  •  but  that  these 
rightly  tempered  are  the  very  ingredients  of 
virtue?  They  are  not  skilful  considerers  of 
human  things,  who  imagine  to  remove  sin, 
by  removing  the  matter  of  sin ;  for,  besides 
that  it  is  a  huge  heap  increasing  under  the 
very  act  of  diminishing,  though  some  part  of 
it  may  for  a  time  be  withdrawn  from  some 
persons,  it  cannot  from  all,  in  such  a  uni- 
versal thing  as  books  are;  and  when  this  is 
done,  yet  the  sin  remains  entire.  Though  ye 
168 


Areopagitica 

take  from  a  covetous  man  all  his  treasure, 
he  has  yet  one  jewel  left,  ye  cannot  bereave 
him  of  his  covetousness.  Banish  all  objects 
of  lust,  shut  up  all  youth  into  the  severest 
discipline  that  can  be  exercised  in  any  her- 
mitage, ye  cannot  make  them  chaste,  that 
came  not  thither  so :  such  great  care  and 
wisdom  is  required  to  the  right  managing  of 
this  point. 

Suppose  we  could  expel  sin  by  this  means ; 
look  how  much  we  thus  expel  of  sin,  so  much 
we  expel  of  virtue :  for  the  matter  of  them 
both  is  the  same:  remove  that,  and  ye  re- 
move them  both  alike.  This  justifies  the  high 
providence  of  God,  who,  though  he  com- 
mands us  temperance,  justice,  continence,  yet 
pours  out  before  us  even  to  a  profuseness  all 
desirable  things,  and  gives  us  minds  that  can 
wander  beyond  all  limit  and  satiety.  Why 
should  we  then  affect  a  rigor  contrary  to  the 
manner  of  God  and  of  nature,  by  abridging 
or  scanting  those  means,  which  books  freely 
permitted,  are  both  to  the  trial  of  virtue, 
and  the  exercise  of  truth? 

It  would  be  better  done,  to  learn  that  the 
law  must  needs  be  frivolous,  which  goes  to 
restrain  things,  uncertainly  and  yet  equally 
working  to  good  and  to  evil.  And  were  1 
the  chooser,  a  dram  of  well-doing  should  be 
preferred  before  many  times  as  much  the 
forcible  hinderance  of  evil-doing.  For  God 
sure  esteems  the  growth  and  completing  of 
169 


Milton 

one  virtuous  person,  more  than  the  restraint 
of  ten  vicious.  And  albeit,  whatever  thing 
we  hear  or  see,  sitting,  walking,  travelling, 
or  conversing,  may  be  fitly  called  our  book, 
and  is  of  the  same  effect  that  writings  are; 
yet  grant  the  thing  to  be  prohibited  were 
only  books,  it  appears  that  this  order  hith- 
erto is  far  insufficient  to  the  end  which  it 
intends.  Do  we  not  see,  not  once  or  oftener, 
but  weekly,  that  continued  court-libel 
against  the  parliament  and  city,  printed,  as 
the  wet  sheets  can  witness,  and  dispersed 
among  us  for  all  that  licensing  can  do?  Yet 
this  is  the  prime  service  a  man  would  think 
wherein  this  order  should  give  proof  of  itself. 
If  it  were  executed,  you  will  say.  But  cer- 
tain, if  execution  be  remiss  or  blindfold  now, 
and  in  this  particular,  what  will  it  be  here- 
after, and  in  other  books? 

If  then  the  order  shall  not  be  vain  and 
frustrate,  behold  a  new  labor,  lords  and 
commons,  ye  must  repeal  and  proscribe  all 
scandalous  and  unlicensed  books  already 
printed  and  divulged;  after  ye  have  drawn 
them  up  into  a  list,  that  all  may  know 
which  are  condemned,  and  which  not;  and 
ordain  that  no  foreign  books  be  delivered 
out  of  custody,  till  they  have  been  read  over. 
This  office  will  require  the  whole  time  of  not 
a  few  overseers,  and  those  no  vulgar  men. 
There  be  also  books  which  'are  partly  useful 
and  excellent,  partly  culpable  and  pernicious; 
170 


Areopagitica 

this  \vork  will  ask  as  many  more  officials, 
to  make  expurgations  and  expunctions,  that 
the  commonwealth  of  learning  be  not  dam- 
nified. In  fine,  when  the  multitude  of  books 
increase  upon  their  hands,  ye  must  be  fain  to 
catalogue  all  those  printers  who  are  found 
frequently  offending,  and  forbid  the  importa- 
tion of  their  whole  suspected  typography. 
In  a  word,  that  this  your  order  may  be 
exact,  and  not  deficient,  ye  must  reform  it 
perfectly,  according  to  the  model  of  Trent 
and  Sevil,  which  I  know  ye  abhor  to  do. 

Yet  though  ye  should  condescend  to  this, 
which  God  forbid,  the  order  still  would  be 
but  fruitless  and  defective  to  that  end  where- 
to ye  meant  it.  If  to  prevent  sects  and 
schisms,  who  is  so  unread  or  uncatechised  in 
story,  that  hath  not  heard  of  many  sects 
refusing  books  as  a  hindrance,  and  preserv- 
ing their  doctrine  unmixed  for  many  ages, 
only  by  unwritten  traditions?  The  Christian 
faith  (for  that  was  once  a  schism!)  is  not 
unknown  to  have  spread  all  over  Asia,  ere 
any  gospel  or  epistle  was  seen  in  writing. 
If  the  amendment  of  manners  be  aimed  at, 
look  into  Italy  and  Spain,  whether  those 
places  be  one  scruple  the  better,  the  honester, 
the  wiser,  the  chaster,  since  all  the  inquisi- 
tional rigor  that  hath  been  executed  upon 
books. 

Another  reason,  whereby  to  make  it  plain 
that  this  order  will  miss  the  end  it  seeks, 
171 


Milton 

consider  by  the  quality  which  ought  to  be  in 
every  licenser.  It  cannot  be  denied,  but  that 
he  who  is  made  judge  to  sit  upon  the  birth 
or  death  of  books,  whether  they  may  be 
wafted  into  this  world  or  not,  had  need  to 
be  a  man  above  the  common  measure,  both 
studious,  learned,  and  judicious;  there  may 
be  else  no  mean  mistakes  in  the  censure  of 
what  is  passable  or  not;  which  is  also  no 
mean  injury.  If  he  be  of  such  worth  as  be- 
hoves him,  there  cannot  be  a  more  tedious 
and  unpleasing  journeywork,  a  greater  loss 
of  time  levied  upon  his  head,  than  to  be  made 
the  perpetual  reader  of  unchosen  books  and 
pamphlets,  ofttimes  huge  volumes.  There  is 
no  book  that  is  acceptable,  unless  at  certain 
seasons;  but  to  be  enjoined  the  reading  of 
that  at  all  times,  and  in  a  hand  scarce  legi- 
ble, whereof  three  pages  would  not  down  at 
any  time  in  the  fairest  print,  is  an  imposi- 
tion I  cannot  believe  how  he  that  values 
time,  and  his  own  studies,  or  is  but  of  a 
sensible  nostril,  should  be  able  to  endure. 
In  this  one  thing  I  crave  leave  of  the  present 
licensers  to  be  pardoned  for  so  thinking: 
who  doubtless  took  this  office  up,  looking  on 
it  through  their  obedience  to  the  parliament, 
whose  command  perhaps  made  all  things 
seem  easy  and  unlaborious  to  them;  but 
that  this  short  trial  hath  wearied  them  out 
already,  their  own  expressions  and  excuses 
to  them  who  make  so  many  journeys  to 
172 


Areopagitica 

solicit  their  license,  are  testimony  enough. 
Seeing  therefore  those,  who  now  possess  the 
employment,  by  all  evident  signs  wish  them- 
selves \vell  rid  of  it,  and  that  no  man  of 
worth,  none  that  is  not  a  plain  unthrift  of 
his  own  hours,  is  ever  likely  to  succeed  them, 
except  he  mean  to  put  himself  to  the  salary 
of  a  press  corrector,  we  may  easily  foresee 
what  kind  of  licensers  we  are  to  expect  here- 
after, either  ignorant,  imperious,  and  remiss, 
or  basely  pecuniary.  This  is  what  I  had  to 
show,  wherein  this  order  cannot  conduce  to 
that  end  whereof  it  bears  the  intention. 

I  lastly  proceed  from  the  no  good  it  can 
do,  to  the  manifest  hurt  it  causes,  in  being 
first  the  greatest  discouragement  and  affront 
that  can  be  offered  to  learning  and  to  learned 
men.  It  was  the  complaint  and  lamenta- 
tion of  prelates,  upon  every  least  of  a  mo- 
tion to  remove  pluralities,  and  distribute 
more  equally  church  revenues,  that  then  all 
learning  would  be  for  ever  dashed  and  dis- 
couraged. But  as  for  that  opinion,  I  never 
found  cause  to  think  that  the  tenth  part  of 
learning  stood  or  fell  with  the  clergy:  nor 
could  I  ever  but  hold  it  for  a  sordid  and  un- 
worthy speech  of  any  churchman,  who  had 
a  competency  left  him.  If  therefore  ye  be 
loath  to  dishearten  utterly  and  discontent, 
not  the  merce/iary  crew  of  false  pretenders  to 
learning,  but  the  free  and  ingenuous  sort  of 
such  as  evidently  were  born  to  study  and 
173 


Milton 

love  learning  for  itself,  not  for  lucre,  or  any 
other  end,  but  the  service  of  God  and  of 
truth,  and  perhaps  that  lasting  fame  and 
perpetuity  of  praise,  which  God  and  good 
men  have  consented  shall  be  the  reward  of 
those  \vhose  published  labors  advance  the 
good  of  mankind :  then  know,  that  so  far  to 
distrust  the  judgment  and  the  honesty  of  one 
who  hath  but  a  common  repute  in  learning, 
and  never  yet  offended,  as  not  to  count  him 
fit  to  print  his  mind  without  a  tutor  and 
examiner,  lest  he  should  drop  a  schism,  or 
something  of  corruption,  is  the  greatest  dis- 
pleasure and  indignity  to  a  free  and  knowing 
spirit  that  can  be  put  upon  him. 

What  advantage  is  it  to  be  a  man,  over  it 
is  to  be  a  boy  at  school,  if  we  have  only 
escaped  the  ferula,  to  come  under  the  fescue 
of  an  imprimatur?  if  serious  and  elaborate 
writings,  as  if  they  \vere  no  more  than  the 
theme  of  a  grammar-lad  under  his  peda- 
gogue, must  not  be  uttered  without  the  cur- 
sory eyes  of  a  temporizing  and  extemporizing 
licenser?  He  who  is  not  trusted  with  his 
own  actions,  his  drift  not  being  known  to  be 
evil,  and  standing  to  the  hazard  of  law  and 
penalty,  has  no  great  argument  to  think 
himself  reputed  in  the  commonwealth 
\vherein  he  was  born  for  other  than  a  fool  or 
a  foreigner.  When  a  man  writes  to  the 
world,  he  summons  up  all  his  reason  and 
deliberation  to  assist  him ;  he  searches,  medi- 
174 


Areopagitica 

tates,  is  industrious,  and  likelv  consults  and 
confers  \vith  his  judicious  friends;  after  all 
which  done,  he  takes  himself  to  be  informed 
in  what  he  writes,  as  well  as  any  that  wrote 
before  him ;  if  in  this,  the  most  consummate 
act  of  his  fidelity  and  ripeness,  no  years,  no 
industry,  no  former  proof  of  his  abilities,  can 
bring  him  to  that  state  of  maturity,  as  not 
to  be  still  mistrusted  and  suspected,  unless  he 
carry  all  his  considerate  diligence,  all  his 
midnight  watchings,  and  expense  of  Pal- 
ladian  oil,  to  the  hasty  view  of  an  unleisured 
licenser,  perhaps  much  his  younger,  perhaps 
far.his  inferior  in  judgment,  perhaps  one  who 
never  knew  the  labor  of  bookwriting;  and  if 
he  be  not  repulsed,  or  slighted,  must  appear 
in  print  like  a  puny  with  his  guardian,  and 
his  censor's  hand  on  the  back  of  his  title  to 
be  his  bail  and  surety,  that  he  is  no  idiot  or 
seducer;  it  cannot  be  but  a  dishonor  and 
derogation  to  the  author,  to  the  book,  to  the 
privilege  and  dignity  of  learning. 

And  what  if  the  author  shall  be  one  so 
copious  of  fancy,  as  to  have  many  things 
well  worth  the  adding,  come  into  his  mind 
after  licensing,  while  the  book  is  yet  under 
the  press,  which  not  seldom  happens  to  the 
best  and  diligentest  writers;  and  that  per- 
haps a  dozen  times  in  one  book.  The  printer 
dares  not  go  beyond  his  licensed  copy ;  so 
often  then  must  the  author  trudge  to  his 
leave-giver,  that  those  his  new  insertions 
175 


Milton 

may  be  viewed ;  and  many  a  jaunt  will  be 
made,  ere  that  licenser,  for  it  must  be  the 
same  man,  can  either  be  found,  or  found  at 
leisure;  meanwhile  either  the  press  must 
stand  still,  which  is  no  small  damage,  or  the 
author  lose  his  accuratest  thoughts,  and  send 
the  book  forth  worse  than  he  had  made  it, 
which  to  a  diligent  writer  is  the  greatest 
melancholy  and  vexation  that  can  befall. 

And  how  can  a  man  teach  with  authority, 
which  is  the  life  of  teaching ;  how  can  he  be 
a  doctor  in  his  book,  as  he  ought  to  be,  or 
else  had  better  be  silent,  whenas  all  he 
teaches,  all  he  delivers,  is  but  under  the  -tui- 
tion, under  the  correction  of  his  patriarchal 
licenser,  to  blot  or  alter  what  preciselv  ac- 
cords not  with  the  hide-bound  humor  which 
he  calls  his  judgment?  When  every  acute 
reader,  upon  the  first  sight  of  a  pedantic 
license,  will  be  ready  with  these  like  words 
to  ding  the  book  a  quoit's  distance  from 
him: —  "I  hate  a  pupil  teacher;  I  endure  not 
an  instructor  that  comes  to  me  under  the 
wardship  of  an  overseeing  fist.  I  know 
nothing  of  the  licenser,  but  that  I  have  his 
own  hand  here  for  his  arrogance ;  who  shall 
warrant  me  his  judgment?"  "The  state, 
sir,"  replies  the  stationer:  but  has  a  quick 
return: —  "The  state  shall  be  my  governors, 
but  not  my  critics ;  they  may  be  mistaken  in 
the  choice  of  a  licenser,  as  easily  as  this 
licenser  may  be  mistaken  in  an  author.  This 
176 


Areopagitica 

is  some  common  stuff:"  and  he  might  add 
from  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  that  "such  author- 
ized books  are  but  the  language  of  the 
times."  For  though  a  licenser  should  happen 
to  be  judicious  more  than  ordinary,  which 
will  be  a  great  jeopardy  of  the  next  succes- 
sion, yet  his  very  office  and  his  commission 
enjoin  him  to  let  pass  nothing  but  what  is 
vulgarly  received  already. 

Nay,  which  is  more  lamentable,  if  the  work 
of  any  deceased  author,  though  never  so 
famous  in  his  lifetime,  and  even  to  this  day, 
comes  to  their  hands  for  license  to  be  printed, 
or  reprinted,  if  there  be  found  in  his  book 
one  sentence  of  a  venturous  edge,  uttered  in 
the  height  of  zeal,  (and  who  knows  whether 
it  might  not  be  the  dictate  of  a  divine  spirit?) 
yet,  not  suiting  with  every  low  decrepit 
httmor  of  their  own,  though  it  were  Knox 
himself,  the  reformer  of  a  kingdom,  that 
spake  it,  they  will  not  pardon  him  their 
dash ;  the  sense  of  that  great  man  shall  to 
all  posterity  be  lost,  for  the  fearfulness,  or 
the  presumptuous  rashness  of  a  perfunctory 
licenser.  And  to  what  an  author  this  vio- 
lence hath  been  lately  done,  and  in  what 
book,  of  greatest  consequence  to  be  faithfully 
published,  I  could  now  instance,  but  shall 
forbear  till  a  more  convenient  season.  Yet 
if  these  things  be  not  resented  seriously  and 
timely  by  them  who  have  the  remedy  in  their 
power,  but  that  such  ironmoulds  as  these 
12  177 


Milton 

shall  have  authority  to  gnaw  out  the  choic- 
est periods  of  exquisitest  books,  and  to  com- 
mit such  a  treacherous  fraud  against  the 
orphan  remainders  of  worthiest  men  after 
death,  the  more  sorrow  will  belong  to  that 
hapless  race  of  men,  whose  misfortune  it  is  to 
have  understanding.  Henceforth  let  no  man 
care  to  learn,  or  care  to  be  more  than 
•worldly  wise ;  for  certainly  in  higher  matters 
to  be  ignorant  and  slothful,  to  be  a  com- 
mon steadfast  dunce,  \vill  be  the  only  pleas- 
ant life,  and  only  in  request. 

And  as  it  is  a  particular  disesteem  of  every 
knowing  person  alive,  and  most  injurious  to 
the  written  labors  and  monuments  of  the 
dead,  so  to  me  it  seems  an  undervaluing  and 
vilifying  of  the  whole  nation.  I  cannot  set 
so  light  by  all  the  invention,  the  art,  the 
wit,  the  grave  and  solid  judgment  which  is  in 
England,  as  that  it  can  be  comprehended  in 
any  twenty  capacities,  how  good  soever; 
much  less  that  it  should  not  pass  except  their 
superintendence  be  over  it,  except  it  be  sifted 
and  strained  with  their  strainers,  that  it 
should  be  uncurrent  -without  their  manual 
stamp.  Truth  and  understanding  are  not 
such  wares  as  to  be  monopolized  and  traded 
in  by  tickets,  and  statutes,  and  standards. 
We  must  not  think  to  make  a  staple  com- 
modit}'-  of  all  the  knowledge  in  the  land,  to 
mark  and  license  it  like  our  broad-cloth  and 
our  woolpacks.  What  is  it  but  a  servitude 
178 


Areopagitica 

like  that  imposed  by  the  Philistines,  not  to 
be  allowed  the  sharpening  of  our  own  axes 
and  coulters,  but  we  must  repair  from  all 
quarters  to  twenty  licensing  forges? 

Had  any  one  written  and  divulged  errone- 
ous things  and  scandalous  to  honest  life, 
misusing  and  forfeiting  the  esteem  had  of  his 
reason  among  men,  if  after  conviction  this 
only  censure  were  adjudged  him,  that  he 
should  never  henceforth  write,  but  what  were 
first  examined  by  an  appointed  officer,  whose 
hand  should  be  annexed  to  pase  his  credit  for 
him,  that  now  he  might  be  safely  read;  it 
could  not  be  apprehended  less  than  a  dis- 
graceful punishment.  Whence  to  include  the 
whole  nation,  and  those  that  never  yet  thus 
offended,  under  such  a  diffident  and  sus- 
pectful  prohibition,  may  plainly  be  under- 
stood what  a  disparagement  it  is.  So  much 
the  more  whenas  debtors  and  delinquents 
may  walk  abroad  without  a  keeper,  but  un- 
offensive  books  must  not  stir  forth  without 
a  visible  jailer  in  their  title.  Nor  is  it  to  the 
common  people  less  than  a  reproach;  for  if 
we  be  so  jealous  over  them,  as  that  we  dare 
not  trust  them  with  an  English  pamphlet, 
what  do  we  but  censure  them  for  a  giddy, 
vicious,  and  ungrounded  people;  in  such  a 
sick  and  weak  state  of  faith  and  discretion, 
as  to  be  able  to  take  nothing  down  but 
through  the  pipe  of  a  licenser?  That  this  is 
care  or  love  of  them,  we  cannot  pretend, 
179 


Milton 

whenas  in  those  popish  places,  where  the 
laity  are  most  hated  and  despised,  the  same 
strictness  is  used  over  them.  Wisdom  we 
cannot  call  it,  because  it  stops  but  one 
breach  of  license,  nor  that  either:  whenas 
those  corruptions,  which  it  seeks  to  prevent, 
break  in  faster  at  other  doors,  which  cannot 
be  shut. 

And  in  conclusion  it  reflects  to  the  disre- 
pute of  our  ministers  also,  of  whose  labors 
we  should  hope  better,  and  of  their  profi- 
ciency which  .their  flock  reaps  by  them,  than 
that  after  all  this  light  of  the  gospel  which 
is,  and  is  to  be,  and  all  this  continual  preach- 
ing, they  should  be  still  frequented  with  such 
an  unprincipled,  unedified,  and  laic  rabble,  as 
that  the  whiff  of  every  new  pamphlet  should 
stagger  them  out  of  their  catechism  and 
Christian  walking.  This  may  have  much 
reason  to  discourage  the  ministers,  when 
such  a  low  conceit  is  had  of  all  their  exhor- 
tations, and  the  benefiting  of  their  hearers, 
as  that  they  are  not  thought  fit  to  be  turned 
loose  to  three  sheets  of  paper  without  a 
licenser;  that  all  the  sermons,  all  the  lectures 
preached,  printed,  vended  in  such  numbers, 
and  such  volumes,  as  have  now  well-nigh 
made  all  other  books  unsalable,  should  not 
be  armor  enough  against  one  single  En- 
chiridion, without  the  castle  of  St.  Angelo  of 
an  imprimatur. 

And  least  some  should  persuade  ye,  lords 
180 


Areopagitica 

and  commons,  that  these  arguments  of 
learned  men's  discouragement  at  this  your 
order  are  mere  flourishes,  and  not  real,  I 
could  recount  what  I  have  seen  and  heard 
in  other  countries,  where  this  kind  of  inqui- 
sition tyrannizes;  when  I  have  set  among 
their  learned  men,  (for  that  honor  I  had,) 
and  been  counted  happy  to  be  born  in  such 
a  place  of  philosophic  freedom,  as  they  sup- 
posed England  was,  while  themselves  did 
nothing  but  bemoan  the  servile  condition 
into  which  learning  amongst  them  was 
brought;  that  this  was  it  which  had  damped 
the  glory  of  Italian  wits ;  that  nothing  had 
been  there  written  now  these  many  years 
but  flattery  and  fustian.  There  it  was  that 
I  found  and  visited  the  famous  Galileo, 
grown  old,  a  prisoner  to  the  inquisition,  for 
thinking  in  astronomy  otherwise  than  the 
Franciscan  and  Dominican  licensers  thought. 
And  though  I  knew  that  England  then  was 
groaning  loudest  under  the  prelatical  yoke, 
nevertheless  I  took  it  as  a  pledge  of  future 
happiness,  that  other  nations  were  so  per- 
suaded of  her  liberty. 

Yet  was  it  beyond  my  hope,  that  those 
worthies  were  then  breathing  in  her  air,  who 
should  be  her  leaders  to  such  a  deliverance, 
as  shall  never  be  forgotten  by  any  revolu- 
tion of  time  that  this  world  hath  to  finish. 
When  that  was  once  begun,  it  was  as  little 
in  my  fear,  that  what  words  of  complaint  I 
181 


Milton 

heard  among  learned  men  of  other  parts 
uttered  against  the  inquisition,  the  same  I 
should  hear,  by  as  learned  men  at  home, 
uttered  in  time  of  parliament  against  an 
order  of  licensing;  and  that  so  generally, 
that  when  I  had  disclosed  myself  a  compan- 
ion of  their  discontent,  I  might  say,  if  with- 
out envy,  that  he  whom  an  honest  quaestor- 
ship  had  endeared  to  the  Sicilians,  was  not 
more  by  them  importuned  against  Verres, 
than  the  favorable  opinion  which  I  had 
among  many  who  honor  ye,  and  are  known 
and  respected  by  ye,  loaded  me  with  en- 
treaties and  persuasions,  that  I  would  not 
despair  to  lay  together  that  which  just 
reason  should  bring  into  my  mind,  toward 
the  removal  of  an  undeserved  thraldom  upon 
learning. 

That  this  is  not  therefore  the  disburdening 
of  a  particular  fancy,  but  the  common  griev- 
ance of  all  those  who  had  prepared  their 
minds  and  studies  above  the  vulgar  pitch,  to 
advance  truth  in  others,  and  from  others  to 
entertain  it,  thus  much  may  satisfy.  And  in 
their  name  I  shall  for  neither  friend  nor  foe 
conceal  what  the  general  murmur  is ;  that  if 
it  come  to  inquisitioning  again,  and  licensing, 
and  that  we  are  so  timorous  of  ourselves, 
and  suspicious  of  all  men,  as  to  fear  each 
book,  and  the  shaking  of  each  leaf,  before 
we  know  what  the  contents  are;  if  some  who 
but  of  late  were  little  better  than  silenced 
182 


Areopagitica 

from  preaching,  shall  come  now  to  silence  us 
from  reading,  except  what  they  please,  it  can- 
not be  guessed  what  is  intended  by  some  but 
a  second  tyranny  over  learning:  and  will 
soon  put  it  out  of  controversy,  that  bishops 
and  presbyters  are  the  same  to  us,  both 
name  and  thing. 

That  those  evils  of  prelaty  which  before 
from  five  or  six  and  twenty  sees  were  dis- 
tributively  charged  upon  the  whole  people 
will  now  light  wholly  upon  learning,  is  not 
obscure  to  us :  whenas  now  the  pastor  of  a 
small  unlearned  parish,  on  the  sudden  shall 
be  exalted  archbishop  over  a  large  diocese  of 
books,  and  yet  not  remove,  but  keep  his 
other  cure  too,  a  mystical  pluralist.  He  who 
but  of  late  cried  down  the  sole  ordination  of 
every  novice  bachelor  of  art,  and  denied  sole 
jurisdiction  over  the  simplest  parishioner, 
shall  now  at  home  in  his  private  chair,  as- 
sume both  these  over  worthiest  and  excel- 
lentest  books,  and  ablest  authors  that  write 
them.  This  is  not  the  covenants  and  pro- 
testations that  we  have  made!  This  is 
not  to  put  down  prelacy ;  this  is  but  to 
chop  an  episcopacy;  this  is  but  to  trans- 
late the  palace  metropolitan  from  one  kind 
of  dominion  into  another;  this  is  but  an 
old  canonical  sleight  of  commuting  our 
penance.  To  startle  thus  betimes  at  a  mere 
unlicensed  pamphlet,  will,  after  a  while, 
be  afraid  of  every  conventicle,  and  a  while 
183 


Milton 

after  will  make  a  conventicle  of  every  Chris- 
tian meeting. 

But  I  am  certain,  that  a  state  governed  by 
the  rules  of  justice  and  fortitude,  or  a  church 
built  and  founded  upon  the  rock  of  faith  and 
true  knowledge,  cannot  be  so  pusillanimous. 
While  things  are  yet  not  constituted  in  re- 
ligion, that  freedom  of  writing  should  IDC 
restrained  by  a  discipline  imitated  from  the 
prelates,  and  learned  by  them  from  the  in- 
quisition to  shut  us  up  all  again  into  the 
breast  of  a  licenser,  must  needs  give  cause  of 
doubt  and  discouragement  to  all  learned  and 
religious  men;  who  cannot  but  discern  the 
fineness  of  this  politic  drift,  and  who  are  the 
contrivers;  that  while  bishops  were  to  be 
baited  down,  then  all  presses  might  be  open ; 
it  was  the  people's  birthright  and  privilege 
in  time  of  parliament,  it  was  the  breaking 
forth  of  light. 

But  now  the  bishops  abrogated  and  voided 
out  of  the  church,  as  if  our  reformation 
sought  no  more,  but  to  make  room  for 
others  into  their  seats  under  another  name ; 
the  episcopal  arts  begin  to  bud  again ;  the 
cruse  of  truth  must  run  no  more  oil;  liberty 
of  printing  must  be  enthralled  again,  under 
a  prelatical  commission  of  twenty ;  the  privi- 
lege of  the  prople  nullified;  and,  which  is 
worse,  the  freedom  of  learning  must  groan 
again,  and  to  her  old  fetters:  all  this  the 
parliament  yet  sitting.  Although  their  own 
184 


Areopagitica 

late  arguments  and  defences  against  the 
prelates  might  remember  them,  that  this  ob- 
structing violence  meets  for  the  most  part 
with  an  event  utterly  opposite  to  the  end 
which  it  drives  at:  instead  of  suppressing 
sects  and  schisms,  it  raises  them  and  invests 
them  with  a  reputation:  "The  punishing  of 
wits  enhances  their  authority,"  saith  the 
Viscount  St.  Aibans;  "and  a  forbidden  writ- 
ing is  thought  to  be  a  certain  spark  of 
truth,  that  flies  up  in  the  faces  of  them  who 
seek  to  tread  it  out."  This  order,  therefore, 
may  prove  a  nursing  mother  to  sects,  but  I 
shall  easily  show  how  it  will  be  stepdame  to 
truth :  and  first,  by  disenabling  us  to  the 
maintenance  of  what  is  known  already. 

Well  knows  he  who  uses  to  consider,  that 
our  faith  and  knowledge  thrives  by  exercise, 
as  well  as  our  limbs  and  complexion.  Truth 
is  compared  in  scripture  to  a  streaming 
fountain;  if  her  waters  flow  not  in  a  per- 
petual progression,  they  sicken  into  a  muddy 
pool  of  conformity  and  tradition.  A  man 
may  be  a  heretic  in  the  truth;  and  if  he  be- 
lieve things  only  because  his  pastor  says 
so,  or  the  assemblv  so  determines,  without 
knowing  other  reason,  though  his  belief  be 
true,  yet  the  very  truth  he  holds  becomes  his 
heresy.  There  is  not  any  burden  that  some 
would  gladlier  post  off  to  another,  than  the 
charge  and  care  of  their  religion.  There  be, 
who  knows  not  that  there  be?  of  protestants 
185 


Milton 

and  professors,  who  live  and  die  in  as  errant 
and  implicit  faith,  as  any  lay  papist  of 
Loretto. 

A  wealthy  man,  addicted  to  his  pleasure 
and  to  his  profits,  finds  religion  to  he  a 
traffic  so  entangled,  and  of  so  mam-  piddling 
accounts,  that  of  all  mysteries  he  cannot 
skill  to  keep  a  stock  going  upon  that  trade. 
What  should  he  do?  Fain  he  would  have  the 
name  to  be  religious,  fain  he  would  bear  up 
\vith  his  neighbors  in  that.  What  does  he 
therefore,  but  resolve  to  give  over  toiling, 
and  to  find  himself  out  some  factor,  to  whose 
care  and  credit  he  may  commit  the  whole 
managing  of  his  religious  affairs;  some  divine 
of  note  and  estimation  that  must  be.  To 
him  he  adheres,  resigns  the  whole  warehouse 
of  his  religion,  with  all  the  locks  and  keys, 
into  his  custody;  and  indeed  makes  the  very 
person  of  that  man  his  religion ;  esteems  his 
associating  with  him  a  sufficient  evidence 
and  commendatory  of  his  own  pietv.  So 
that  a  man  may  say  his  religion  is  now  no 
more  within  himself,  but  is  become  a  dividual 
movable,  and  goes  and  comes  near  him, 
according  as  that  good  man  frequents  the 
house.  He  entertains  him,  gives  him  gifts, 
feasts  him,  lodges  him;  his  religion  comes 
home  at  night,  pra}rs,  is  liberally  supped, 
and  sumptuously  laid  to  sleep;  rises,  is 
saluted,  and  after  the  malmsey,  or  some  well- 
spiced  bruage,  and  better  breakfasted,  than 
186 


Areopagitica 

He-  whose  morning  appetite  would  have 
gladly  fed  on  green  figs  between  Bethany 
and  Jerusalem,  his  religion  walks  abroad  at 
eight,  and  leaves  his  kind  entertainer  in 
the  shop  trading  all  day  without  his  re- 
ligion. 

Another  sort  there  be,  who  when  they  hear 
that  all  things  shall  be  ordered,  all  things 
regulated  and  settled ;  nothing  written  but 
what  passes  through  the  custom-house  of 
certain  publicans  that  have  the  tonnaging 
and  poundaging  of  all  free-spoken  truth,  will 
straight  give  themselves  up  into  your  hands, 
make  them  and  cut  them  out  what  religion 
ye  please:  there  be  delights,  there  be  recrea- 
tions and  jolly  pastimes,  that  will  fetch  the 
day  about  from  sun  to  sun,  and  rock  the 
tedious  year  as  in  a  delightful  dream.  What 
need  they  torture  their  heads  with  that 
which  others  have  taken  so  strictly,  and  so 
unalterably  into  their  own  purveying?  These 
are  the  fruits  which  a  dull  ease  and  cessation 
of  our  knowledge  will  bring  forth  among  the 
people.  How  goodly,  and  how  to  be  wished 
were  such  an  obedient  unanimity  as  this ! 
What  a  fine  conformity  would  it  starch  us  all 
into!  Doubtless  a  staunch  and  solid  piece 
of  framework,  as  any  January  could  freeze 
together. 

Nor  much  better  will  be  the  consequence 
even  among  the  clergy  themselves:  it  is  no 
new  thing  never  heard  of  before,  for  a  paro- 
187 


Milton 

chial  minister,  who  has  his  reward,  and  is  at 
his  Hercules'  pillars  in  a  warm  benefice,  to  be 
easily  inclinable,  if  he  have  nothing  else  that 
may  rouse  up  his  studies,  to  finish  his  circuit 
in  an  English  Concordance  and  a  topic  folio, 
the  gatherings  and  savings  of  a  sober  gradu- 
ateship,  a  Harmony  and  a  Catena,  treading 
the  constant  round  of  certain  common  doc- 
trinal heads,  attended  with  their  uses,  mo- 
tives, marks,  and  means;  out  of  which,  as 
out  of  an  alphabet  or  sol-fa,  by  forming  and 
transforming,  joining  and  disjoining  vari- 
ously, a  little  bookcraft,  and  two  hours' 
meditation,  might  furnish  him  unspeakably 
to  the  performance  of  more  than  a  weekly 
charge  of  sermoning:  not  to  reckon  up  the 
infinite  helps  of  interliniaries,  breviaries,  syn- 
opses, and  other  loitering  gear.  But  as  for 
the  multitude  of  sermons  ready  printed  and 
piled  up,  on  every  text  that  is  not  difficult, 
our  London  trading  St.  Thomas  in  his 
vestry,  and  add  to  boot  St.  Martin  and  St. 
Hugh,  have  not  within  their  hallowed  limits 
more  vendible  ware  of  all  sorts  ready  made : 
so  that  penury  he  never  need  fear  of  pulpit 
provision,  having  where  so  plenteously  to 
refresh  his  magazine.  But  if  his  rear  and 
flanks  be  not  impaled,  if  his  back  door  be 
not  secured  by  the  rigid  licenser,  but  that  a 
bold  book  may  now  and  then  issue  forth, 
and  give  the  assault  to  some  of  his  old  col- 
lections in  their  trenches,  it  will  concern  him 
188 


Areopagitica 

then  to  keep  waking,  to  stand  in  watch,  to 
set  good  guards  and  sentinels  about  his  re- 
ceived opinions,  to  \valk  the  round  and  coun- 
ter-round with  his  fellow-inspectors,  fearing 
lest  any  of  his  flock  be  seduced  who  also  then 
would  be  better  instructed,  better  exercised, 
and  disciplined.  And  God  send  that  the  fear 
of  this  diligence,  which  must  then  be  used,  do 
not  make  us  affect  the  laziness  of  a  licensing 
church ! 

For  if  we  be  sure  we  are  in  the  right,  and 
do  not  hold  the  truth  guiltily,  which  becomes 
not,  if  we  ourselves  condemn  not  our  own 
weak  and  frivolous  teaching,  and  the  people 
for  an  untaught  and  irreligious  gadding 
route;  what  can  be  more  fair,  than  when  a 
man,  judicious,  learned,  and  of  a  conscience, 
for  aught  we  know,  as  good  as  theirs  that 
taught  us  what  we  know,  shall  not  privily 
from  house  to  house,  which  is  more  danger- 
ous, but  openly  by  writing,  publish  to  the 
world  what  his  opinion  is,  what  his  reasons, 
and  wherefore  that  which  is  now  thought 
cannot  be  sound?  Christ  urged  it  as  where- 
with to  justify  himself,  that  he  preached  in 
public;  yet  writing  is  more  public  than 
preaching;  and  more  easy  to  refutation  if 
need  be,  there  being  so  many  whose  business 
and  profession  merely  it  is  to  be  the  cham- 
pions of  truth ;  which  if  they  neglect,  what 
can  be  imputed  but  their  sloth  or  inability? 

Thus  much  we  are  hindered  and  disinured 
189 


Milton 

by  this  course  of  licensing  towards  the  true 
knowledge  of  what  we  seem  to  know.  For 
how  much  it  hurts  and  hinders  the  licensers 
themselves  in  the  calling  of  their  ministry, 
more  than  any  secular  employment,  if  they 
will  discharge  that  office  as  they  ought,  so 
that  of  necessity  they  must  neglect  either  the 
one  duty  or  the  other,  I  insist  not,  because  it 
is  a  particular,  but  leave  it  to  their  own  con- 
science, how  they  will  decide  it  there. 

There  is  yet  behind  of  what  I  purposed  to 
lay  open,  tke  incredible  loss  and  detriment 
that  this  plot  of  licensing  puts  us  to,  more 
than  if  some  enemy  at  sea  should  stop  up 
all  our  havens,  and  ports,  and  creeks;  it 
hinders  and  retards  the  importation  of  our 
richest  merchandise, — truth :  nay,  it  was  first 
established  and  put  in  practice  by  anti- 
christian  malice  and  mystery,  or  set  purpose 
to  extinguish,  if  it  were  possible,  the  light  of 
reformation,  and  to  settle  falsehood ;  little 
differing  from  that  policy  wherewith  the 
Turk  upholds  his  Alcoran,  by  the  prohibiting 
of  printing.  It  is  not  denied,  but  gladly  con- 
fessed, we  are  to  send  our  thanks  and  vows 
to  heaven,  louder  than  most  of  nations,  for 
that  great  measure  of  truth  which  we  enjoy, 
especially  in  those  main  points  between  us 
and  the  pope,  \vith  his  appurtenances  the 
prelates :  but  he  who  thinks  we  are  to  pitch 
our  tent  here,  and  have  attained  the  utmost 
prospect  of  reformation  that  the  mortal 
190 


Areopagitica 

glass  wherein  we  contemplate  can  show  us, 
till  we  come  to  beatific  vision,  that  man  by 
this  very  opinion  declares  that  he  is  yet  far 
short  of  truth. 

Truth  indeed  came  once  into  the  world 
with  her  divine  Master,  and  was  a  perfect 
shape  most  glorious  to  look  on :  but  when  he 
ascended,  and  his  apostles  after  him  were 
laid  asleep,  then  straight  arose  a  wicked  race 
of  deceivers,  who,  as  that  story  goes  of  the 
Egvptian  Typhon  with  his  conspirators, 
how  they  dealt  with  the  good  Osiris,  took 
the  virgin  Truth,  hewed  her  lovely  form  into 
a  thousand  pieces,  and  scattered  them  to  the 
four  winds.  From  that  time  ever  since,  the 
sad  friends  of  Truth,  such  as  durst  appear, 
imitating  the  careful  search  that  Isis  made 
for  the  mangled  body  of  Osiris,  went  up  and 
down  gathering  up  limb  by  limb  still  as  they 
could  find  them.  We  have  not  yet  found 
them  all,  lords  and  commons,  nor  ever  shall 
do,  till  her  Master's  second  coming;  he  shall 
bring  together  ever\r  joint  and  member,  and 
shall  mould  them  into  an  immortal  feature  of 
loveliness  and  perfection.  Suffer  not  these 
licensing  prohibitions  to  stand  at  ever\r  place 
of  opportunity  forbidding  and  disturbing 
them  that  continue  seeking,  that  continue  to 
do  our  obsequies  to  the  torn  body  of  our 
martyred  saint. 

We  boast  our  light;  but  if  we  look  not 
wisely  on  the  sun  itself,  it  smites  us  into 
191 


Milton 

darkness.  Who  can  discern  those  planets 
that  are  oft  combust,  and  those  stars  of 
brightest  magnitude  that  rise  and  set  with 
the  sun,  until  the  opposite  motion  of  their 
orbs  bring  them  to  such  a  place  in  the  firma- 
ment, where  they  may  be  seen  evening  or 
morning?  The  light  which  we  have  gained 
was  given  us,  not  to  be  ever  staring  on,  but 
by  it  to  discover  onward  things  more  remote 
from  our  knowledge.  It  is  not  the  unfrock- 
ing of  a  priest,  the  unmitring  of  a  bishop, 
and  the  removing  him  from  off  the  Presby- 
terian shoulders,  that  will  make  us  a  happy 
nation :  no ;  if  other  things  as  great  in  the 
church,  and  in  the  rule  of  life  both  economi- 
cal and  political,  be  not  looked  into  and  re- 
formed, we  have  looked  so  long  upon  the 
blaze  that  Zuinglius  and  Calvin  have  bea- 
coned up  to  us,  that  we  are  stark  blind. 

There  be  who  perpetually  complain  of 
schisms  and  sects,  and  make  it  such  a  calam- 
ity that  any  man  dissents  from  their  maxims. 
It  is  their  own  pride  and  ignorance  which 
causes  the  disturbing,  who  neither  will  hear 
with  meekness,  nor  can  convince,  yet  all 
must  be  suppressed  which  is  not  found  in 
their  S3'ntagma.  They  are  the  troublers, 
they  are  the  dividers  of  unity,  who  neglect 
and  permit  not  others  to  unite  those  dis- 
severed pieces,  which  are  yet  wanting  to  the 
body  of  truth.  To  be  still  searching  what 
we  know  not,  by  what  we  know,  still  closing 
192 


Areopagitica 

up  truth  to  truth  as  we  find  it,  (for  all  her 
body  is  homogeneal,  and  proportional,)  this 
is  the  golden  rule  in  theology  as  well  as  in 
arithmetic,  and  makes  up  the  best  harmony 
in  a  church;  not  the  forced  and  outward 
union  of  cold,  and  neutral,  and  inwardly 
divided  minds. 

Lords  and  commons  of  England !  consider 
what  nation  it  is  whereof  ye  are,  and  whereof 
ye  are  the  governors :  a  nation  not  slow  and 
dull,  but  of  a  quick,  ingenious,  and  piercing 
spirit ;  acute  to  invent,  subtile  and  sinewy 
to  discourse,  not  beneath  the  reach  of  any 
point  the  highest  that  human  capacity  can 
soar  to.  Therefore  the  studies  of  learning  in 
her  deepest  sciences  have  been  so  ancient,  and 
so  eminent  among  us,  that  writers  of  good 
antiquity  and  able  judgment  have  been  per- 
suaded, that  even  the  school  of  Pythagoras, 
and  the  Persian  \visdom,  took  beginning 
from  the  old  philosophy  of  this  island.  And 
that  wise  and  civil  Roman,  Julius  Agricola, 
who  governed  once  here  for  Caesar,  preferred 
the  natural  wits  of  Britain  before  the  labored 
studies  of  the  French. 

Nor  is  it  for  nothing  that  the  grave  and 
frugal  Trans}'lvanian  sends  out  yearly  from 
as  far  as  the  mountainous  borders  of  Russia, 
and  beyond  the  Hercynian  wilderness,  not 
their  youth,  but  their  staid  men,  to  learn 
our  language  and  our  theological  arts.  Yet 
that  which  is  above  all  this,  the  favor  and 
13  193 


Milton 

the  love  of  Heaven,  \ve  have  great  argument 
to  think  in  a  peculiar  manner  propitious  and 
propending  towards  us.  Why  else  was  this 
nation  chosen  before  any  other,  that  out  of 
her,  as  out  of  Sion,  should  be  proclaimed  and 
sounded  forth  the  first  tidings  and  trumpet 
of  reformation  to  all  Europe?  And  had  it 
not  been  the  obstinate  perverseness  of  our 
prelates  against  the  divine  and  admirable 
spirit  of  Wickliffe,  to  suppress  him  as  a 
schismatic  and  innovator,  perhaps  neither 
the  Bohemian  Husse  and  Jerome,  no,  nor  the 
name  of  Luther  or  of  Calvin,  had  been  ever 
known:  the  glory  of  reforming  all  our  neigh- 
bors had  been  completely  ours.  But  now, 
as  our  obdurate  clergy  have  with  violence 
demeaned  the  matter,  we  are  become  hitherto 
the  latest  and  the  backwardest  scholars,  of 
•whom  God  offered  to  have  made  us  the 
teachers. 

Now  once  again  by  all  concurrence  of  signs, 
and  by  the  general  instinct  of  holy  and  de- 
vout men,  as  they  daily  and  solemnly  express 
their  thoughts,  God  is  decreeing  to  begin 
some  new  and  great  period  in  his  church, 
even  to  the  reforming  of  reformation  itself; 
\vhat  does  he  then  but  reveal  himself  to  his 
servants,  and  as  his  manner  is,  first  to  his 
Englishmen?  I  say,  as  his  manner  is,  first  to 
us,  though  we  mark  not  the  method  of  his 
counsels,  and  are  unworthy.  Behold  now 
this  vast  city,  a  city  of  refuge,  the  mansion- 
19-4 


Areopagitica 

house  of  liberty,  encompassed  and  sur- 
rounded with  his  protection;  the  shop  of  war 
hath  not  there  more  anvils  and  hammers 
working,  to  fashion  out  the  plates  and  in- 
struments of  armed  justice  in  defence  of  be- 
leaguered truth,  than  there  be  pens  and  heads 
there,  sitting  by  their  studious  lamps,  mus- 
ing, searching,  revolving  new  notions  and 
ideas  wherewith  to  present,  as  with  their 
homage  and  their  fealty,  the  approaching 
reformation :  others  as  fast  reading,  trying 
all  things,  assenting  to  the  force  of  reason 
and  convincement. 

What  could  a  man  require  more  from  a 
nation  so  pliant  and  so  prone  to  seek  after 
knowledge?  What  wants  there  to  such  a 
towardly  and  pregnant  soil,  but  wise  and 
faithful  laborers,  to  make  a  knowing  people, 
a  nation  of  prophets,  of  sages,  and  of  wor- 
thies? We  reckon  more  than  five  months  yet 
to  harvest ;  there  need  not  be  five  weeks,  had 
we  but  eyes  to  lift  up,  the  fields  are  white 
already.  Where  there  is  much  desire  to 
learn,  there  of  necessity  will  be  much  arguing, 
much  writing,  many  opinions;  for  opinion 
in  good  men  is  but  knowledge  in  the  making. 
Under  these  fantastic  terrors  of  sect  and 
schism,  we  wrong  the  earnest  and  zealous 
thirst  after  knowledge  and  understanding, 
which  God  hath  stirred  up  in  this  city. 
What  some  lament  of,  we  rather  should  re- 
joice at,  should  rather  praise  this  pious  for- 
195 


Milton 

wardness  among  men,  to  reassume  the  ill 
deputed  care  of  their  religion  into  their  own 
hands  again.  A  little  generous  prudence,  a 
little  forbearance  of  one  another,  and  some 
grain  of  charity  might  win  all  these  dili- 
gencies  to  join  and  unite  into  one  general 
and  brotherly  search  after  truth;  could  we 
but  forego  this  prelatical  tradition  of  crowd- 
ing free  consciences  and  Christian  liberties 
into  canons  and  precepts  of  men.  I  doubt 
not,  if  some  great  and  worthy  stranger 
should  come  among  us,  wise  to  discern  the 
mould  and  temper  of  a  people,  and  how  to 
govern  it,  observing  the  high  hopes  and 
aims,  the  diligent  alacrity  of  our  extended 
thoughts  and  reasonings  in  the  pursuance  of 
truth  and  freedom,  but  that  he  would  cry 
out  as  Pyrrhus  did,  admiring  the  Roman 
docility  and  courage,  "If  such  were  my 
Epirots,  I  would  not  despair  the  greatest 
design  that  could  be  attempted  to  make  a 
church  or  kingdom  happy." 

Yet  these  are  the  men  cried  out  against  for 
schismatics  and  sectaries,  as  if,  while  the 
temple  of  the  Lord  was  building,  some  cut- 
ting, some  squaring  the  marble,  others  hew- 
ing the  cedars,  there  should  be  a  sort  of 
irrational  men,  who  could  not  consider  there 
must  be  many  schisms  and  many  dissections 
made  in  the  quarry  and  in  the  timber  ere  the 
house  of  God  can  be  built.  And  when  every 
stone  is  laid  artfully  together,  it  cannot  be 
196 


Areopagitica 

united  into  a  continuity,  it  can  but  be  con- 
tiguous in  this  world :  neither  can  every  piece 
of  the  building  be  of  one  form ;  nay,  rather 
the  perfection  consists  in  this,  that  out  of 
many  moderate  varieties  and  brotherly  dis- 
similitudes that  are  not  vastly  dispropor- 
tional,  arises  the  goodly  and  the  graceful 
symmetry  that  commends  the  whole  pile  and 
structure. 

Let  us  therefore  be  more  considerate  build- 
ers, more  wise  in  spiritual  architecture,  when 
great  reformation  is  expected.  For  now  the 
time  seems  come,  wherein  Moses,  the  great 
prophet,  may  sit  in  heaven  rejoicing  to  see 
that  memorable  and  glorious  wish  of  his  ful- 
filled, when  not  only  our  seventy  elders,  but 
all  the  Lord's  people,  are  become  prophets. 
No  marvel  then  though  some  men,  and  some 
good  men  too  perhaps,  but  young  in  good- 
ness, as  Joshua  then  was,  envy  them.  They 
fret,  and  out  of  their  own  weakness  are  in 
agony,  lest  these  divisions  and  subdivisions 
will  undo  us.  The  adversary  again  ap- 
plauds, and  waits  the  hour :  when  they  have 
branched  themselves  out,  saith  he,  small 
enough  into  parties  and  partitions,  then  will 
be  our  time.  Fool !  he  sees  not  the  firm  root, 
out  of  which  we  all  grow,  though  into 
branches ;  nor  will  beware,  until  he  see  our 
small  divided  maniples  cutting  through  at 
every  angle  of  his  ill-united  and  unwieldy 
brigade.  And  that  we  are  to  hope  better 
197 


Milton 

of  all  these  supposed  sects  and  schisms,  and 
that  \ve  shall  not  need  that  solicitude,  honest 
perhaps,  though  overtimorous,  of  them  that 
vex  in  this  behalf,  but  shall  laugh  in  the  end 
at  those  malicious  applauders  of  our  differ- 
ences, I  have  these  reasons  to  persuade  me. 

First,  when  a  city  shall  be  as  it  were  be- 
sieged and  blocked  about,  her  navigable 
river  infested,  inroads  and  incursions  round, 
defiance  and  battle  oft  rumored  to  be  march- 
ing up,  even  to  her  walls  and  suburb 
trenches ;  that  then  the  people,  or  the  greater 
part,  more  than  at  other  times,  wholly  taken 
up  with  the  study  of  highest  and  most  im- 
portant matters  to  be  reformed,  should  be 
disputing,  reasoning,  reading,  inventing,  dis- 
coursing, even  to  a  rarity  and  admiration, 
things  not  before  discoursed  or  written  of, 
argues  first  a  singular  good  will,  contented- 
ness,  and  confidence  in  your  prudent  fore- 
sight, and  safe  government,  lords  and  com- 
mons ;  and  from  thence  derives  itself  to  a 
gallant  bravery  and  well-grounded  contempt 
of  their  enemies,  as  if  there  were  no  small 
number  of  as  great  spirits  among  us,  as  his 
was  who,  when  Rome  was  nigh  besieged  by 
Hannibal,  being  in  the  city,  bought  that 
piece  of  ground  at  no  cheap  rate  whereon 
Hannibal  himself  encamped  his  own  regi- 
ment. 

Next,  it  is  a  lively  and  cheerful  presage  of 
our  happy  success  and  victory.  For  as  in  a 
198 


Areopagitica 

body  when  the  blood  is  fresh,  the  spirits  pure 
and  vigorous,  not  only  to  vital,  but  to  ra- 
tional faculties,  and  those  in  the  acutest  and 
the  pertest  operations  of  wit  and  subtlety,  it 
argues  in  what  good  plight  and  constitution 
the  body  is;  so  when  the  cheerfulness  of  the 
people  is  so  sprightly  up,  as  that  it  has  not 
only  wherewith  to  guard  well  its  own  free- 
dom and  safety,  but  to  spare,  and  to  bestow 
upon  the  solidest  and  sublimest  points  of 
controversy  and  new  invention,  it  betokens 
us  not  degenerated,  nor  drooping  to  a  fatal 
decay,  by  casting  off  the  old  and  wrinkled 
skin  of  corruption  to  outlive  these  pangs, 
and  wax  young  again,  entering  the  glorious 
wavs  of  truth  and  prosperous  virtue,  des- 
tined to  become  great  and  honorable  in  these 
latter  ages.  Methinks  I  see  in  my  mind  a 
noble  and  puissant  nation  rousing  herself 
like  a  strong  man  after  sleep,  and  shaking 
her  invincible  locks:  methinks  I  see  her  as  an 
eagle  mewing  her  mighty  youth,  and  kin- 
dling her  undazzled  eyes  at  the  full  midday 
beam ;  purging  and  unsealing  her  long- 
abused  sight  at  the  fountain  itself  of  heav- 
enly radiance;  while  the  whole  noise  of 
timorous  and  nocking  birds,  with  those 
also  that  love  the  twilight,  flutter  about, 
amazed  at  what  she  means,  and  in  their 
envious  gabble  would  prognosticate  a  year 
of  sects  and  schisms. 

What  should  ye  do  then,  should  ye  suppress 
199 


Milton 

all  this  flowery  crop  of  knowledge  and  new 
light  sprung  up  and  yet  springing  daily  in 
this  city?  Should  ye  set  an  oligarchy  of 
twenty  engrossers  over  it,  to  bring  a  famine 
upon  our  minds  again,  when  we  shall  know 
nothing  but  what  is  measured  to  us  by  their 
bushel?  Believe  it,  lords  and  commons!  they 
who  counsel  ye  to  such  a  suppressing,  do  as 
good  as  bid  ye  suppress  yourselves;  and  I 
will  soon  show  how.  If  it  be  desired  to 
know  the  immediate  cause  of  all  this  free 
writing  and  free  speaking,  there  cannot  be 
assigned  a  truer  than  your  own  mild,  and 
free,  and  humane  government ;  it  is  the 
liberty,  lords  and  commons,  which  your  own 
valorous  and  happy  counsels  have  purchased 
us;  liberty  which  is  the  nurse  of  all  great 
wits:  this  is  that  which  hath  rarefied  and 
enlightened  our  spirits  like  the  influence  of 
heaven:  this  is  that  which  hath  enfranchised, 
enlarged,  and  lifted  up  our  apprehensions 
degrees  above  themselves.  Ye  cannot  make 
us  now  less  capable,  less  knowing,  less 
eagerly  pursuing  of  the  truth,  unless  ye  first 
make  yourselves,  that  made  us  so,  less  the 
lovers,  less  the  founders  of  our  true  liberty. 
We  can  grow  ignorant  again,  brutish,  formal, 
and  slavish,  as  ye  found  us;  but  you  then 
must  first  become  that  which  ye  cannot  be, 
oppressive,  arbitrary,  and  tyrannous,  as 
they  were  from  whom  ye  have  freed  us. 
That  our  hearts  are  now  more  capacious, 
200 


Areopagitica 

our  thoughts  more  erected  to  the  search  and 
expectation  of  greatest  and  exactest  things, 
is  the  issue  of  your  o\vn  virtue  propagated 
in  us;  ye  cannot  suppress  that  unless  ye  rein- 
force an  abrogated  and  merciless  law,  that 
fathers  may  dispatch  at  will  their  own  chil- 
dren. And  who  shall  then  stick  closest  to  ye 
and  excite  others?  Not  he  who  takes  up 
arms  for  coat  and  conduct,  and  his  four 
nobles  of  Danegelt.  Although  I  dispraise  not 
the  defence  of  just  immunities,  yet  love  my 
peace  better,  if  that  were  all.  Give  me  the 
liberty  to  know,  to  utter,  and  to  argue 
freely  according  to  conscience,  above  all 
liberties. 

What  would  be  best  advised  then,  if  it  be 
found  so  hurtful  and  so  unequal  to  suppress 
opinions  for  the  newness  or  the  unsuitable- 
ness  to  a  customary  acceptance,  will  not  be 
my  task  to  say;  I  shall  only  repeat  what  I 
have  learned  from  one  of  your  own  honor- 
able number,  a  right  noble  and  pious  lord, 
who  had  he  not  sacrificed  his  life  and  for- 
tunes to  the  church  and  commonwealth,  we 
had  now  missed  and  bewailed  a  worthy  and 
undoubted  patron  of  this  argument.  Ye 
know  him,  I  am  sure;  yet  I  for  honour's 
sake,  and  may  it  be  eternal  to  him,  shall 
name  him,  the  Lord  Brook.  He  writing  of 
episcopacy,  and  by  the  way  treating  of  sects 
and  schisms,  left  ye  his  vote,  or  rather  now 
the  last  words  of  his  dying  charge,  which  I 
201 


Milton 

know  will  ever  be  of  dear  and  honored  re- 
gard with  ye,  so  full  of  meekness  and  breath- 
ing charity,  that  next  to  His  last  testament, 
who  bequeathed  love  and  peace  to  his  disci- 
ples, I  cannot  call  to  mind  where  I  have  read 
or  heard  words  more  mild  and  peaceful.  He 
there  exhorts  us  to  hear  with  patience  and 
humility  those,  however  they  be  miscalled, 
that  desire  to  live  purely,  in  such  a  use  of 
God's  ordinances,  as  the  best  guidance  of 
their  conscience  gives  them,  and  to  tolerate 
them,  though  in  some  disconformity  to  our- 
selves. The  book  itself  will  tell  us  more  at 
large,  being  published  to  the  "world,  and 
dedicated  to  the  parliament  by  him,  who 
both  for  his  life  and  for  his  death  deserves, 
that  what  advice  he  left  be  not  laid  by  with- 
out perusal. 

And  now  the  time  in  special  is,  by  privilege 
to  write  and  speak  what  may  help  to  the 
further  discussing  of  matters  in  agitation. 
The  temple  of  Janus,  with  his  two  contro- 
versial faces,  might  now  not  unsignificantly 
be  set  open.  And  though  all  the  winds  of 
doctrine  were  let  loose  to  play  upon  the 
earth,  so  truth  be  in  the  field,  we  do  injuri- 
ously by  licensing  and  prohibiting  to  mis- 
doubt her  strength.  Let  her  and  falsehood 
grapple;  who  ever  knew  truth  put  to  the 
worse,  in  a  free  and  open  encounter?  Her 
confuting  is  the  best  and  surest  suppressing. 
He  who  hears  what  praying  there  is  for  light 
202 


Areopagitica 

and  clear  knowledge  to  be  sent  down  among 
us,  would  think  of  other  matters  to  be  con- 
stituted beyond  the  discipline  of  Geneva, 
framed  and  fabricated  already  to  our  hands. 
Yet  when  the  new  light  which  we  beg  for 
shines  in  upon  us,  there  be  who  envy  and 
oppose,  if  it  come  not  first  in  at  their  case- 
ments. What  a  collusion  is  this,  whenas  we 
are  exhorted  bv  the  wise  man  to  use  dili- 
gence, "to  seek  for  wisdom  as  for  hidden 
treasures,"  early  and  late,  that  another 
order  shall  enjoin  us,  to  know  nothing  but 
by  statute?  When  a  man  hath  been  laboring 
the  hardest  labor  in  the  deep  mines  of  know- 
ledge, hath  furnished  out  his  findings  in  all 
their  equipage,  drawn  forth  his  reasons  as  it 
were  a  battle  ranged,  scattered  and  defeated 
all  objections  in  his  way,  calls  out  his  ad- 
versary into  the  plain,  offers  him  the  advan- 
tage of  wind  and  sun,  if  he  please,  only 
that  he  may  try  the  matter  by  dint  of  argu- 
ment; for  his  opponents  then  to  skulk,  to 
lay  ambushments,  to  keep  a  narrow  bridge 
of  licensing  where  the  cha^enger  should  pass, 
though  it  be  valor  enough  in  soldiership,  is 
but  weakness  and  cowardice  in  the  wars  of 
truth.  For  who  knows  not  that  truth  is 
strong,  next  to  the  Almighty;  she  needs  no 
policies,  nor  stratagems,  nor  licensings  to 
make  her  victorious;  those  are  the  shifts  and 
the  defences  that  error  uses  against  her 
power :  give  her  but  room,  and  do  not  bind 
203 


Milton 

her  when  she  sleeps,  for  then  she  speaks  not 
true,  as  the  old  Proteus  did,  who  spake 
oracles  only  when  he  was  caught  and  bound, 
but  then  rather  she  turns  herself  into  all 
shapes  except  her  own,  and  perhaps  tunes 
her  voice  according  to  the  time,  as  Micaiah 
did  before  Ahab,  until  she  be  adjured  into  her 
own  likeness. 

Yet  is  it  not  impossible  that  she  may  have 
more  shapes  than  one?  What  else  is  all  that 
rank  of  things  indifferent,  wherein  truth  may 
be  on  this  side,  or  on  the  other,  without  be- 
ing unlike  herself?  What  but  a  vain  shadow 
else  is  the  abolition  of  "those  ordinances, 
that  handwriting  nailed  to  the  cross"? 
What  great  purchase  is  this  Christian  liberty 
which  Paul  so  often  boasts  of?  His  doctrine 
is,  that  he  who  eats  or  eats  not,  regards  a 
day  or  regards  it  not,  may  do  either  to  the 
Lord.  How  many  other  things  might  be 
tolerated  in  peace,  and  left  to  conscience,  had 
we  but  charity,  and  were  it  not  the  chief 
stronghold  of  our  hypocris\r  to  be  ever  judg- 
ing one  another?  I  fear  yet  this  iron  3roke  of 
outward  conformity  hath  left  a  slavish  print 
upon  our  necks;  the  ghost  of  a  linen  decency 
yet  haunts  us.  We  stumble,  and  are  impa- 
tient at  the  least  dividing  of  one  visible  con- 
gregation from  another,  though  it  be  not  in 
fundamentals;  and  through  our  forwardness 
to  suppress,  and  our  backwardness  to  re- 
cover, any  enthralled  piece  of  truth  out  of  the 
204 


Areopagitica 

gripe  of  custom,  we  care  not  to  keep  truth 
separated  from  truth,  which  is  the  fiercest 
rent  and  disunion  of  all.  We  do  not  see  that 
while  we  still  affect  by  all  means  a  rigid  ex- 
ternal formality,  we  may  as  soon  fall  again 
into  a  gross  conforming  stupidity,  a  stark 
and  dead  congealment  of  "wood  and  hay 
and  stubble"  forced  and  frozen  together, 
which  is  more  to  the  sudden  degenerating  of 
a  church  than  many  subdichotomies  of  petty 
schisms. 

Not  that  I  can  think  well  of  every  light 
separation;  or  that  all  in  a  church  is  to  be 
expected  "gold  and  silver,  and  precious 
stones:"  it  is  not  possible  for  man  to  sever 
the  \vheat  from  the  tares,  the  good  fish  from 
the  other  fry ;  that  must  be  the  angels'  min- 
istry at  the  end  of  mortal  things.  Yet  if  all 
cannot  be  of  one  mind,  as  who  looks  they 
should  be?  this  doubtless  is  more  wholesome, 
more  prudent,  and  more  Christian,  that 
many  be  tolerated  rather  than  all  compelled. 
I  mean  not  tolerated  popery,  and  open  super- 
stition, which  as  it  extirpates  all  religions 
and  civil  supremacies,  so  itself  should  be  ex- 
tirpate, provided  first  that  all  charitable  and 
compassionate  means  be  used  to  win  and  re- 
gain the  \veak  and  the  misled :  that  also 
which  is  impious  or  evil  absolutely  either 
against  faith  or  manners,  no  law  can  pos- 
sibly permit,  that  intends  not  to  unlaw  it- 
self: but  those  neighboring  differences,  or 
205 


Milton 

rather  indifferences,  are  what  I  speak  of, 
whether  in  some  point  of  doctrine  or  of  disci- 
pline, which  though  they  may  lye  many,  yet 
need  not  interrupt  the  unity  of  vSpirit,  if  we 
could  but  find  among  us  the  bond  of  peace. 
In  the  meanwhile,  if  anyone  would  write, 
and  bring  his  helpful  hand  to  the  slow-mov- 
ing reformation  which  we  labor  under,  if 
truth  have  spoken  to  him  before  others,  or 
but  seemed  at  least  to  speak,  who  hath  so 
bejesuited  us,  that  we  should  trouble  that 
man  with  asking  license  to  do  so  worthy  a 
deed ;  and  not  consider  this,  that  if  it  come 
to  prohibiting,  there  is  not  aught  more 
likely  to  be  prohibited  than  truth  itself: 
whose  first  appearance  to  our  eyes,  bleared 
and  dimmed  with  prejudice  and  custom,  is 
more  unsightly  and  unplausible  than  many 
errors;  even  as  the  person  is  of  many  a  great 
man  slight  and  contemptible  to  see  to.  And 
what  do  they  tell  us  vainly  of  new  opinions, 
when  this  very  opinion  of  theirs,  that  none 
must  be  heard  but  whom  they  like,  is  the 
worst  and  newest  opinion  of  all  others;  and 
is  the  chief  cause  why  sects  and  schisms  do 
so  much  abound,  and  true  knowledge  is  kept 
at  distance  from  us;  besides  yet  a  greater 
danger  which  is  in  it.  For  when  God  shakes 
a  kingdom,  with  strong  and  healthful  com- 
motions, to  a  general  reforming,  it  is  not 
untrue  that  many  sectaries  and  false  teachers 
are  then  busiest  in  seducing. 
206 


Areopagitica 

But  vet  more  true  it  is,  that  God  then 
raises  to  his  own  work  men  of  rare  abilities, 
and  more  than  common  industry,  not  only 
to  look  back  and  revive  what  hath  been 
taught  heretofore,  but  to  gain  further,  and 
to  go  on  some  new  enlightened  steps  in  the 
discovery  of  truth.  For  such  is  the  order 
of  God's  enlightening  his  church,  to  dispense 
and  deal  out  by  degrees  his  beam,  so  as  our 
earthly  eyes  may  best  sustain  it.  Neither 
is  God  appointed  and  confirmed,  where  and 
out  of  what  place  these  his  chosen  shall  be 
first  heard  to  speak ;  for  he  sees  not  as  man 
sees,  chooses  not  as  man  chooses,  lest  we 
should  devote  ourselves  again  to  set  places 
and  assemblies,  and  outward  callings  of  men; 
planting  our  faith  one  while  in  the  old  con- 
vocation house;  and  another  while  in  the 
chapel  at  Westminster;  when  all  the  faith 
and  religion  that  shall  be  there  canonized,  is 
not  sufficient  without  plain  convincement, 
and  the  charity  of  patient  instruction,  to 
supple  the  least  bruise  of  conscience,  to  edify 
"the  meanest  Christian,  who  desires  to  walk 
in  the  spirit,  and  not  in  the  letter  of  human 
trust,  for  all  the  number  of  voices  that  can 
be  there  made;  no,  though  Harry  the  Sev- 
enth himself  there,  with  all  his  liege  tombs 
about  him,  should  lend  them  voices  from  the 
dead  to  swell  their  number. 

And  if  the  men  be  erroneous  who  appear 
to    be   the  leading  schismatics,   what   with- 
207 


Milton 

holds  us  but  our  sloth,  our  self-will,  and  dis- 
trust in  the  right  cause,  that  we  do  not  give 
them  gentle  meetings  and  gentle  dismissions, 
that  we  debate  not  and  examine  the  matter 
thoroughly  with  liberal  and  frequent  audi- 
ence; if  not  for  their  sakes  yet  for  our  own? 
Seeing  no  man  who  hath  tasted  learning,  but 
will  confess  the  many  ways  of  profiting  by 
those  who,  not  contented  with  stale  receipts, 
are  able  to  manage  and  set  forth  new  posi- 
tions to  the  world.  And  were  they  but  as 
the  dust  and  cinders  of  our  feet,  so  long  as 
in  that  notion  they  ma}'  yet  serve  to  polish 
and  brighten  the  armory  of  truth,  even  for 
that  respect  they  were  not  utterly  to  lie  cast 
away.  But  if  they  be  of  those  whom  God 
hath  fitted  for  the  special  use  of  these  times 
with  eminent  and  ample  gifts,  and  those  per- 
haps neither  among  the  priests,  nor  among 
the  pharisees,  and  we,  in  the  haste  of  a  pre- 
cipitant zeal,  shall  make  no  distinction,  but 
resolve  to  stop  their  mouths,  because  we  fear 
they  come  with  new  and  dangerous  opin- 
ions, as  we  commonly  forejudge  them  ere  we 
understand  them ;  no  less  than  woe  to  us, 
while,  thinking  thus  to  defend  the  gospel,  we 
are  found  the  persecutors! 

There  have  been  not  a  few  since  the  be- 
ginning of  this  parliament,  both  of  the  pres- 
bytery and  others,  who  by  their  unlicensed 
books  to  the  contempt  of  an  imprimatur 
first  broke  that  triple  ice  clung  about  our 
208 


Areopagitica 

hearts,  and  taught  the  people  to  see  day;  I 
hope  that  none  of  those  were  the  persuaders 
to  renew  upon  us  this  bondage,  which  they 
themselves  have  wrought  so  much  good  by 
contemning.  But  if  neither  the  check  that 
Moses  gave  to  young  Joshua,  nor  the  coun- 
termand which  our  Saviour  gave  to  young 
John,  who  was  so  ready  to  prohibit  those 
whom  he  thought  unlicensed,  be  not  enough 
to  admonish  our  elders  how  unacceptable  to 
God  their  testy  mood  of  prohibiting  is;  if 
neither  their  own  remembrance  what  evil 
hath  abounded  in  the  church  by  this  lett  of 
licensing,  and  what  good  they  themselves 
have  begun  by  transgressing  it,  be  not 
enough,  but  that  they  will  persuade  and 
execute  the  most  Dominican  part  of  the  inqui- 
sition over  us,  and  are  already  with  one  foot 
in  the  stirrup  so  active  at  suppressing,  it 
would  be  no  unequal  distribution  in  the  first 
place  to  suppress  the  suppressors  themselves; 
whom  the  change  of  their  condition  hath 
puffed  up,  more  than  their  late  experience  of 
harder  times  hath  made  wise. 

And  as  for  regulating  the  press,  let  no  inan 
think  to  have  the  honor  of  advising  ye  better 
than  yourselves  have  done  in  that  order  pub- 
lished next  before  this,  "That  no  book  be 
printed,  unless  the  printer's  and  the  author's 
name,  or  at  least  the  printer's  be  registered." 
Those  which  otherwise  come  forth,  if  they  be 
found  mischievous  and  libellous,  the  fire  and 
14  '  209 


Milton 

the  executioner  will  be  the  timeliest  and  the 
most  effectual  remedy  that  man's  prevention 
can  use.  For  this  authentic  Spanish  policy 
of  licensing  books,  if  I  have  said  aught,  will 
prove  the  most  unlicensed  book  itself  within 
a  short  while ;  and  was  the  immediate  image 
of  a  star-chamber  decree  to  that  purpose 
made  in  those  times  \vhen  that  court  did  the 
rest  of  those  her  pious  works,  for  which  she 
is  now  fallen  from  the  stars  with  Lucifer. 
Whereby  ye  may  guess  what  kind  of  state 
prudence,  what  love  of  the  people,  what  care 
of  religion  or  good  manners  there  was  at  the 
contriving,  although  with  singular  hypocrisy 
it  pretended  to  bind  books  to  their  good 
behavior.  And  how  it  got  the  upper  hand  of 
your  precedent  order  so  well  constituted 
before,  if  we  may  believe  those  men  whose 
profession  gives  them  cause  to  inquire  most, 
it  may  be  doubted  there  was  in  it  the  fraud 
of  some  old  patentees  and  monopolizers,  in 
the  trade  of  bookselling;  who,  under  the  pre- 
tence of  the  poor  in  their  company  not  to  be 
defrauded,  and  the  just  retaining  of  each 
man  his  several  copy,  (which  God  forbid 
should  be  gainsaid,)  brought  divers  glossing 
colors  to  the  house,  which  were  indeed  but 
colors,  and  serving  to  no  end  except  it  be  to 
exercise  a  superiority  over  their  neighbors; 
.men  who  do  not  therefore  labor  in  an  honest 
profession,  to  which  learning  is  indebted, 
that  they  should  be  made  other  men's  vas- 
210 


Areopagitica 

sals.  Another  end  is  thought  was  aimed  at 
by  some  of  them  in  procuring  by  petition 
this  order,  that  having  power  in  their  hands, 
malignant  books  might  the  easier  escape 
abroad,  as  the  event  shows.  But  of  those 
sophisms  and  elenchs  of  merchandise  I  skill 
not :  this  I  know,  that  errors  in  a  good  gov- 
ernment and  in  a  bad  are  equally  almost 
incident;  for  what  magistrate  may  not  be 
misinformed,  and  much  the  sooner,  if  liberty 
of  printing  be  reduced  into  the  power  of  a 
few?  But  to  redress  willingly  and  speedily 
what  hath  been  erred,  and  in  highest  author- 
ity to  esteem  a  plain  advertisement  more 
than  others  have  done  a  sumptuous  bride, 
is  a  virtue  (honored  lords  and  commons!) 
answerable  to  your  highest  actions,  and 
whereof  none  can  participate  but  greatest 
and  wisest  men. 


211 


LIBRARY 


A    000  611  030     8 


